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Bumas' Iparis 



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lE^ublished November, 1904 



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Contents 



♦ 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. A General Introduction . . . . i 

II. Dumas' Early Life in Paris ... 14 

III. Dumas' Literary Career .... 33 

IV. Dumas' Contemporaries .... 68 
V. The Paris of Dumas 83 

VI. Old Paris 126 

VII. Ways and Means of Communication . 147 

VI 11. The Banks of the Seine .... 165 

IX. The Second Empire and After . .178 

X. La Ville 195 

XL La Cit^ 235 

XI 1. L'Universite Qu artier .... 244 

XIII. The Louvre 257 

XIV. The Palais Royal 266 

XV. The Bastille . . ... 278 

XVI. The Royal Parks and Palaces . . 297 

XVII. The French Provinces . . . .321 

XVIII. Les Pays Strangers 359 

Appendices 373 

Index ...••••. 377 



%ist of HUustrations 



PAGB 

Alexandre Dumas Frontispiece 

Dumas' House at Villers - Cotterets ... 7 

Statue of Dumas at Villers - Cotterets . . 14 
Facsimile of Dumas' Own Statement of His 

Birth 26 

Facsimile of a Manuscript Page from One of 

Dumas' Plays 37 

D'Artagnan 48 

Alexandre Dumas, Fils 64 

Two Famous Caricatures of Alexandre Dumas 68 

Tomb of Abelard and Helo'ise .... 82 

General Foy's Residence 84 

D'Artagnan, from the Dumas Statue by Gus- 

tave Dore 123 

Pont Neuf — Pont au Change . . . . i3S 

Portrait of Henry IV 143 

Grand Bureau de la Poste i54 

The Odeon in 181 8 167 

Palais Royal, Street Front 183 

T] Rue d'Amsterdam — Rue de St. Denis . .188 

Place de la Gr^ve i97 

Tour de St. Jacques la Boucherie (Meryon's 

Etching, " Le Stryge") 198 

Hotel des Mousquetaires, Rue d'Arbre Sec . 207 
. vii 



viu xtst ot IfUustrattons 



PAGE 



D'Artagnan's Lodgings, Rue Tiquetonne . .214 
109 Rue du Faubourg St. Denis (D^scamps' 

Studio) 221 

Notre Dame de Paris 235 

Plan of La Cite 236 

Carmelite Friary, Rue Vaugirard . . . 246 

Plan of the Louvre 257 

The Gardens of the Tuileries .... 265 

The Orleans Bureau, Palais Royal . . . 268 

The Fall of the Bastille . . . . . 284 

Inn of the Pont de Sevres 302 

Bois de Boulogne — Bois de Vincennes — Foret 

DE Villers - Cotterets 315 

Chateau of the Dues de Valois, Crepy . '318 

Castle of Pierrefonds 324 

Notre Dame de Chartres 329 

Castle of Angers — Chateau of Blois . . 333 



Sumas' Ipatis 



CHAPTER I. 

A GENERAL INTRODUCTION 

rHERE have been many erudite works, 
in French and other languages, describ- 
ing the antiquities and historical annals 
of Paris from the earliest times; and in English 
the mid-Victorian era turned out — there are no 
other words for it — innumerable " books of 
travel " which recounted alleged adventures, strewn 
here and there with bits of historical lore and anec- 
dotes, none too relevant, and in most cases not of 
undoubted authenticity. 

Of the actual life of the people in the city of 
light and learning, from the times of Napoleon 
onward, one has to go to the fountainhead of writ- 
ten records, the acknowledged masterworks in the 



2 2)ttma0' Paris 

language of the country itself, the reports and an^ 
wuaires of various societes, commissions, and what 
not, and collect therefrom such information as he 
finds may suit his purpose. 

In this manner may be built up a fabric which 
shall be authentic and proper, varied and, most 
likely, quite different in its plan, outline, and scope 
from other works of a similar purport, which may 
be recalled in connection therewith. 

Paris has been rich in topographical historians, 
and, indeed, in her chroniclers in all departments, 
and there is no end of relative matter which may 
be evolved from an intimacy with these sources 
of supply. In a way, however, this information 
ought to be supplemented by a personal knowledge 
on the part of the compiler, which should make 
localities, distances, and environments — to say 
nothing of the actual facts and dates of history 

— appear as something more than a shrine to be 
worshipped from afar. 

Given, then, these ingredients, with a love of the 
subject, — no less than of the city of its domicile, 

— it has formed a pleasant itinerary in the expe- 
riences of the writer of this book to have followed 
in the footsteps of Dumas pere, through the streets 
that he knew and loved, taking note meanwhile 
of such contemporary shadows as were thrown 



H General 1[ntrot)uctton 3 

across his path, and such events of importance or 
significance as blended in with the scheme of the 
hterary Hfe of the times in which he hved, none 
the less than of those of the characters in his 
books. 

Nearly all the great artists have adored Paris — 
poets, painters, actors, and, above all, novelists. 

From which it follows that Paris is the ideal city 
for the novelist, who, whether he finds his special 
subjects in her streets or not, must be inspired by 
this unique fulness and variety of human life. 
Nearly all the great French novelists have adored 
Paris. Dumas loved it; Victor Hugo spent years 
of his time in riding about her streets on omni- 
buses ; Daudet said splendid things of it, and nearly, 
if not quite, all the great names of the artistic 
world of France are indissolubly linked with it. 

Paris to-day means not " La Ville," " La Cite," 
or " L'Universite," but the whole triumvirate. 
Victor Hugo very happily compared the three cities 
to a little old woman between two handsome, strap- 
ping daughters. 

It was Beranger who announced his predilection 
for Paris as a birthplace. Dumas must have felt 
something of the same emotion, for he early gravi- 
tated to the " City of Liberty and Equality," in 



4 Dumas' Paris 

which — even before the great Revolution — mis- 
fortune was at all times alleviated by sympathy. 

From the stones of Paris have been built up many 
a lordly volume — and many a slight one, for that 
matter — which might naturally be presumed to 
have recounted the last word which may justifiably 
have been said concerning the various aspects of 
the life and historic events which have encircled 
around the city since the beginning of the moyen 
age. 

This is true or not, according as one embraces a 
wide or a contracted horizon in one's view. 

For most books there is, or was at the time of 
their writing, a reason for being, and so with 
familiar spots, as with well-worn roads, there is 
always a new panorama projecting itself before 
one. 

The phenomenal, perennial, and still growing in- 
terest in the romances of Dumas the elder is the 
excuse for the present work, which it is to be hoped 
is admittedly a good one, however far short of 
exhaustiveness — a much overworked word, by the 
way — the volume may fall. 

It were not possible to produce a complete or 
" exhaustive " work on any subject of a historical, 
topographical or aesthetic nature: so why claim it? 



H General l[ntroC)uction s 

The last word has not yet been said on Dumas him- 
self, and surely not on Paris — no more has it on 
Pompeii, where they are still finding- evidences of 
a long lost civilization as great as any previously 
unearthed. 

It was only yesterday, too (this is written in the 
month of March, 1904), that a party of frock- 
coated and silk-hatted benevolent-looking gentlemen 
were seen issuing from a manhole in the Universite 
quartier of Paris. They had been inspecting a newly 
discovered thermale etahlissement of Roman times, 
which led off one of the newly opened subterranean 
arteries which abound beneath Paris. 

It is said to be a rival of the Roman bath which 
is enclosed within the walls of the present Musee 
Cluny, and perhaps the equal in size and splendour 
of any similar remains extant. 

This, then, suggests that in every land new 
ground, new view-points, and new conditions of 
life are making possible a record which, to have its 
utmost value, should be a progressively chrono- 
logical one. 

And after this manner the present volume has 
been written. There is a fund of material to draw 
upon, historic fact, pertinent and contemporary 
side-lights, and, above all, the environment which 
haloed itself around the personality of Dumas, 



6 Bumas' parts 

which lies buried in many a cache which, if not 
actually inaccessible, is at least not to be found in 
the usual books of reference. 

Perhaps some day even more will have been col- 
lected, and a truly satisfying biographical work 
compiled. If so, it will be the work of some ardent 
Frenchman of a generation following that in which 
Alexandre Dumas lived, and not by one of the 
contemporaries of even his later years. Albert 
Vandam, perhaps, might have done it as it should 
have been done; but he did not do so, and so an 
intimate personal record has been lost. 

Paris has ever been written down in the book 
of man as the city of light, of gaiety, and of a 
trembling vivacity which has been in turn profli- 
gate, riotous, and finally criminal. 

All this is perhaps true enough, but no more in 
degree than in most capitals which have endured 
so long, and have risen to such greatness. 

With Paris it is quantity, with no sacrifice of 
quality, that has placed it in so preeminent a posi- 
tion among great cities, and the life of Paris — 
using the phrase in its most commonly recognized 
aspect — is accordingly more brilliant or the re- 
verse, as one views it from the boulevards or from 
the villettes. 

French writers, the novelists in particular, have 




DUMAS' HOUSE AT VILLERS - COTTERETS 



H General Unttobuctton 7 

well known and made use of this; painters and 
poets, too, have perpetuated it in a manner which 
has not been applied to any other city in the world. 

To realize the conditions of the life of Paris 
to the full one has to go back to Rousseau — perhaps 
even farther. His observation that '''' Les maisons 
font la ville, mais le citoyens font la cite^' was true 
when written, and it is true to-day, with this modi- 
fication, that the delimitation of the confines of 
la ville should be extended so far as to include all 
workaday Paris — the shuffling, bustling world of 
energy and spirit which has ever insinuated itself 
intO' the daily life of the people. 

The love and knowledge of Alexandre Dumas 
pere for Paris was great, and the accessory and 
detail of his novels, so far as he drew upon the 
capital, was more correct and apropos. It was 
something more than a mere dash of local colour 
scattered upon the canvas from a haphazard 
palette. In minutice it was not drawn as fine as the 
later Zola was wont to accomplish, but it showed 
no less detail did one but comprehend its full mean- 
ing. 

Though born in the provincial town Villers- 
Cotterets, — seventy-eight kilometres from Paris on 
the road to Soissons, — Dumas came early in touch 
with the metropolis, having in a sort of runaway 



s 2)uma5' Paris 

journey broken loose from his old associations and 
finally becoming settled in the capital as a clerk 
in the Bureau d'Orleans, at the immature age of 
twenty. Thus it was that his impressions and 
knowledge of Paris were founded upon an ex- 
perience which was prolonged and intimate, ex- 
tending, with brief intervals of travel, for over 
fifty years. 

He had journeyed meantime to Switzerland, 
England, Corsica, Naples, the Rhine, Belgium, — 
with a brief residence in Italy in 1840 — 42, — then 
visiting Spain, Russia, the Caucasus, and Germany. 

This covered a period from 1822, when he first 
came to Paris, until his death at Puys, near Dieppe, 
in 1870; nearly a full half-century amid activities 
in matters literary, artistic, and social, which were 
scarce equalled in brilliancy elsewhere — before or 
since. 

In spite of his intimate association with the 
affairs of the capital, — he became, it is recalled, 
a candidate for the Chamber of Deputies at the time 
of the Second Republic, — Dumas himself has 
recorded, in a preface contributed to a " Histoire 
de I'Eure," by M. Charpillon (1879), that if he were 
ever to compile a history of France he should first 
search for les pierres angulaires of his edifice in the 
provinces. 



H (General IFntroDuction 9 

This bespeaks a catholicity which, perhaps, after 
all, is, or should be, the birthright of every his- 
torical novelist. 

He said further, in this really valuable and in- 
teresting contribution, which seems to have been 
entirely overlooked by the bibliographers, that " to 
write the history of France would take a hundred 
volumes " — and no doubt he was right, though 
it has been attempted in less. 

And again that " the aggrandizement of Paris 
has only been accomplished by a weakening process 
having been undergone by the provinces." The 
egg from which Paris grew was deposited in the 
nest of la cite, the same as are the eggs laid par 
un cygne. 

He says further that in writing the history of 
Paris he would have founded on " Lutetia (or 
Louchetia) the Villa de Jules, and would erect in 
the Place de Notre Dame a temple or altar to 
Ceres; at which epoch would have been erected 
another to Mercury, on the Mount of Ste. Gene- 
vieve; to Apollo in the Rue de la Barillerie, where 
to-day is erected that part of Tuileries built by 
Louis XIV., and which is called Le Pavilion de 
Flore. 

" Then one would naturally follow with Les 
Thermes de Julien, which grew up from the Villa 



lo 2)umas' pads 

de Jules; the reunion under Charlemagne which 
accomplished the Sordonne {Sora bona), which 
in turn became the favourite place of residence of 
Hugues Capet, the stronghold of Philippe-Auguste, 
the bibliotheque of Charles V., the monumental 
capital of Henri VI. d'Angleterre ; and so on 
through the founding of the first printing estab- 
lishment in France by Louis XL ; the new school 
of painting by Frangois L; of the Academic by 
Richelieu; ... to the final curtailment of monar- 
chial power with the horrors of the Revolution and 
the significant events which centred around the 
Bastille, Versailles, and the Tuileries." 

Leaving the events of the latter years of the 
eighteenth century, and coming to the day in which 
Dumas wrote (1867), Paris was truly — and in 
every sense — 

" The capital of France, and its history became 
not only the history of France but the history of 
the world. . . . The city will yet become the capital 
of humanity, and, since Napoleon repudiated his 
provincial residences and made Paris sa residence 
imperiale, the man of destiny who reigns in Paris 
in reality reigns throughout the universe." 

There may be those who will take exception to 
these brilliant words of Dumas. The Frenchman 
has always been an ardent and soi-disant bundle of 



H (General Ifntrobuctton n 

enthusiasm, but those who love him must pardon 
his pride, which is harmless to himself and others 
alike, and is a far more admirable quality than 
the indifference and apathy born of other lands. 

His closing words are not without a cynical 
truth, and withal a pride in Paris : 

" It is true that if we can say with pride, we 
Parisians, * It was Paris which overthrew the Bas- 
tille,' you of the provinces can say with equal pride, 
' It was we who made the Revolution.' " 

As if to ease the hurt, he wrote further these two 
lines only: 

" At this epoch the sister nations should erect 
a gigantic statue of Peace. This statue will be 
Paris, and its pedestal will represent La Province." 

His wish — it was not prophecy — did not, how- 
ever, come true, as the world in general and France 
and poor rent Alsace et Lorraine in particular 
know to their sorrow; and all through a whim of 
a self-appointed, though weakling, monarch. 

The era of the true peace of the world and the 
monument to its glory came when the French 
nation presented to the New World that grand work 
of Bartholdi, "Liberty Enlightening the World," 
which stands in New York harbour, and whose 
smaller replica now terminates the Allee des Cygnes. 

The grasp that Dumas had of the events of ro- 



12 Juntas' Paris 

mance and history served his purpose well, and in 
the Hfe of the fifties in Paris his was a name and 
personaHty that was on everybody's Hps. 

How he found time to Hve the full life that he 
did is a marvel; it certainly does not bear out the 
theory of heredity when one considers the race of 
his birth and the " dark-skinned " languor which 
was supposedly his heritage. 

One edition of his work comprises two hundred 
and seventy-seven volumes, and within the year a 
London publisher has announced some sixty vol- 
umes " never before translated/' Dumas himself 
has said that he was the author of over seven hun- 
dred works. 

In point of time his romances go back to the 
days of the house of Valois and the Anglo-French 
wars (1328), and to recount their contents is to 
abstract many splendid chapters from out the pages 
of French history. 

It would seem as though nearly every personage 
of royalty and celebrity (if these democratic times 
will allow the yoking together of the two; real 
genuine red republicans would probably link royalty 
and notoriety) stalked majestically through his 
pages, and the record runs from the fourteenth 
nearly to the end of the nineteenth century, with 
the exception of the reign of Louis XL 



H General IFntrobuctton 13 

An ardent admirer of Sir Walter Scott has com- 
mented upon this lapse as being accounted for by 
the apparent futility of attempting to improve upon 
" Quentin Durward." This is interesting, signifi- 
cant, and characteristic, but it is not charitable, 
generous, or broad-minded. 



CHAPTER II. 



/0T fifteen (1817), Dumas entered the law- 
yer office of one Mennesson at Villers-Cot- 
terets as a saute-ruisseau (gutter-snipe), 
as he himself called it, and from this time on he 
was forced to forego what had been his passion 
heretofore : bird-catching, shooting, and all manner 
of woodcraft. 

When still living at Villers-Cotterets Dumas had 
made acquaintance with the art of the dramatist, 
so far as it was embodied in the person of Adolphe 
de Leuven, with whom he collaborated in certain 
immature melodramas and vaudevilles, which De 
Leuven himself took to Paris for disposal. 

" No doubt managers would welcome them with 
enthusiasm," said Dumas, " and likely enough we 
shall divert a branch of that Pactolus River which 
is irrigating the domains of M. Scribe" (1822). 

Later on in his " Memoires " he says : " Complete 
humiliation; we were refused everywhere." 

14 




STATUE OF DUMAS AT VILLERS - COTTERETS 



Dumas' Barl^ %itc in Paris 15 

From Villers-Cotterets the scene of Dumas' 
labours was transferred to Crepy, three and a half 
leagues distant, a small town to which he made 
his way on foot, his belongings in a little bundle 
^' not more bulky than that of a Savoyard when he 
leaves his native mountains/' 

In his new duties, still as a lawyer's clerk, Dumas 
found life very wearisome, and, though the ancient 
capital of the Valois must have made an impress 
upon him, — as one learns from the Valois ro- 
mances, — he pined for the somewhat more free 
life which he had previously lived; or, taking the 
bull by the horns, deliberated as to how he might 
get into the very vortex of things by pushing on 
to the capital. 

As he tritely says, " To arrive it was necessary 
to make a start," and the problem was how to 
arrive in Paris from Crepy in the existing con- 
dition of his finances. 

By dint of ingenuity and considerable activity 
Dumas left Crepy in company with a friend on a 
sort of a runaway holiday, and made his third en- 
trance into Paris. 

It would appear that Dumas' culinary and gas- 
tronomic capabilities early came into play, as we 
learn from the " Memoires " that, when he was not 
yet out of his teens, and serving in the notary's 



1 6 Dumas* Paris 

office at Crepy, he proposed to his colleague that 
they take this three days' holiday in Paris. 

They could muster but thirty-five francs between 
them, so Dumas proposed that they should shoot 
game en< route. Said Dumas, " We can kill, shall 
I say, one hare, two partridges, and a quail. . . . 
We reach Dammartin, get the hinder part of our 
hare roasted and the front part jugged, then we 
eat and drink." " And what then ? " said his 
friend. " What then ? Bless you, why we pay 
for our wine, bread, and seasoning with the two 
partridges, and we tip the waiter with the 
quail." 

The journey was accomplished in due order, and 
he and his friend put up at the Hotel du Vieux- 
Augustins, reaching there at ten at night. 

In the morning he set out to find his collab- 
orateur De Leuven, but the fascination of Paris 
was such that it nearly made him forswear regard 
for the flight of time. 

He says of the Palais Royale : " I found myself 
within its courtyard, and stopped before the Theatre 
Frangais, and on the bill I saw : 

" < Demain, Lundi 

Sylla 

Tragddie dans cinq Actes 

Par M. de Jouy ' 



2)uma0' iBavl^ %itc in parts 17 

" I solemnly swore that by some means or other 
... I would see Sylla, and all the more so because, 
in large letters, under the above notice, were the 
words, ' The character of Sylla will be taken by 
M. Talma.' " 

In his " Memoires " Dumas states that it was at 
this time he had the temerity to call on the great 
Talma. " Talma was short-sighted," said he, " and 
was at his toilet; his hair was close cut, and his 
aspect under these conditions was remarkably un- 
poetic. . . . Talma was for me a god — a god 
unknown, it is true, as was Jupiter to Semele." 

And here comes a most delicious bit of Dumas 
himself, Dumas the egotist: 

" Ah, Talma ! were you but twenty years younger 
or I twenty years older! I know the past, you 
cannot foretell the future. . . . Had you known. 
Talma, that the hand you had just touched would 
ultimately write sixty or eighty dramas ... in 
each of which you would have found the material 
for a marvellous creation. . . ." 

Dumas may be said to have at once entered the 
world of art and letters in this, his third visit to 
Paris, which took place so early in life, but in the 
years so ripe with ambition. 

Having seen the great Talma in Sylla, in his 
dressing-room at the Theatre Frangais, he met 



is 2)umas' parts 

Delavigne, who was then just completing his " Ecole 
des Viellards/' Lucien Arnault, who had just 
brought out " Regulus ; " Soumet, fresh from the 
double triumph of "Saul" and " Clymnestre ; " 
here, too, were Lemercier, Delrien, Viennet, and 
Jouy himself; and he had met at the Cafe du Roi, 
Theadlon, Francis, Rochefort, and De Merle; in- 
deed by his friend De Leuven he was introduced 
to the assemblage there as a " future Corneille," 
in spite of the fact that he was but a notary's clerk. 

Leaving what must have been to Dumas the pres- 
ence^ he shot a parting remark, " Ah, yes, I shall 
come to Paris for good, I warrant you that." 

In " The Taking of the Bastille " Dumas traces 
again, in the characters of Pitou and old Father 
Billot, much of the route which he himself took on 
his first visit to Paris. The journey, then, is re- 
counted from first-hand information, and there will 
be no difficulty on the part of any one in tracing the 
similarity of the itinerary. 

Chapter I., of the work in question, brings us at 
once on familiar ground, and gives a description of 
Villers-Cotterets and its inhabitants in a manner 
which shows Dumas' hand so unmistakably as to 
remove any doubts as to the volume of assistance 
he may have received from others, on this particular 
book at least. 



Dumas' Barlp %iU in Paris 19 

" On the borders of Picardy and the province of 
Soissons, and on that part of the national territory 
which, under the name of the Isle of France, formed 
a portion of the ancient patrimony of our kings, 
and in the centre of an immense crescent, formed 
by a forest of fifty thousand acres, which stretches 
its horns to the north and south, rises, almost 
buried amid the shades of a vast park planted by 
Frangois I. and Henri II., the small city of Villers- 
Cotterets. This place is celebrated from having 
given birth to Charles Albert Demoustier, who, at 
the period when our present history commences, 
was there writing his Letters to Emilie on Myth- 
ology, to the unbounded satisfaction of the pretty 
women of those days, who eagerly snatched his 
publications from each other as soon as printed. 

" Let us add, tO' complete the poetical reputa- 
tion of this little city, whose detractors, notwith- 
standing its royal chateau and its two thousand 
four hundred inhabitants, obstinately persist in call- 
ing it a mere village — let us add, we say, to com- 
plete its poetical reputation, that it is situated at 
two leagues distance from Laferte-Milan, where 
Racine was born, and eight leagues from Chateau- 
Thierry, the birthplace of La Fontaine. 

" Let us also state that the mother of the author 



20 Dumas' parts 

of ' Britannicus ' and ' Athalie ' was from Villers- 
Cotterets. 

" But now we must return to its royal chateau 
and its two thousand four hundred inhabitants. 

" This royal chateau, begun by Frangois I., whose 
salamanders still decorate it, and finished by 
Henri IL, whose cipher it bears entwined with 
that of Catherine de Medici and encircled by the 
three crescents of Diana of Poictiers, after having 
sheltered the loves of the knight king with Madame 
d'Etampes, and those of Louis Philippe of Orleans 
with the beautiful Madame de Montesson, had be- 
come almost uninhabited since the death of this 
last prince; his son, Philippe d'Orleans, afterward 
called Egalite, having made it descend from the 
rank of a royal residence to that of a mere hunt- 
ing rendezvous. 

"It is well known that the chateau and forest 
of Villers-Cotterets formed part of the appanage 
settled by Louis XIV. on his brother Monsieur, 
when the second son of Anne of Austria married 
the sister of Charles IL, the Princess Henrietta of 
England. 

" As to the two thousand four hundred inhab- 
itants of whom we have promised our readers to 
say a word, they were, as in all localities where two 



Dumas' lEarl^ %itc in parts 21 

thousand four hundred people are united, a heter- 
ogeneous assemblage. 

" Firstly : Of the few nobles, who spent their 
summers in the neighbouring chateaux and their 
winters in Paris, and who, mimicking the prince, 
had only a lodging-place in the city. 

" Secondly : Of a goodly number of citizens, who 
could be seen, let the weather be what it might, 
leaving their houses after dinner, umbrella in hand, 
to take their daily walk, a walk which was regularly 
bounded by a deep, invisible ditch which separated 
the park from the forest, situated about a quarter 
of a league from the town, and which was called, 
doubtless on account of the exclamation which the 
sight of it drew from the asthmatic lungs of the 
promenaders, satisfied at finding themselves not too 
much out of breath, the * Ha, ha ! ' 

" Thirdly : Of a considerably greater number of 
artisans who worked the whole of the week and 
only allowed themselves to take a walk on the 
Sunday; whereas their fellow townsmen, more 
favoured by fortune, could enjoy it every day. 

" Fourthly and finally : Of some miserable prole- 
tarians, for whom the week had not even a Sab- 
bath, and who', after having toiled six days in the 
pay of the nobles, the citizens, or even of the ar- 
tisans, wandered on the seventh day through the 



22 2)umas' parts 

forest to gather up dry wood or branches of the 
lofty trees, torn from them by the storm, that 
mower of the forest, to whom oak-trees are but 
ears of wheat, and which it scattered over the 
humid soil beneath the lofty trees, the magnificent 
appanage of a prince. 

" If Villers-Cotterets (Villerii ad Cotiam Retiae) 
had been, unfortunately, a town of sufficient im- 
portance in history to induce archaeologists to ascer- 
tain and follow up its successive changes from a 
village to a town and from a town to a city — the 
last, as we have said, being strongly contested, they 
would certainly have proved this fact, that the vil- 
lage had begun by being a row of houses on either 
side of the road from Paris to Soissons; then 
they would have added that its situation on the 
borders of a beautiful forest having, though by 
slow degrees, brought to it a great increase of in- 
habitants, other streets were added to the first, di- 
verging like the rays of a star and leading toward 
other small villages with which it was important 
to keep up communication, and converging toward 
a point which naturally became the centre, that is 
to say, what in the provinces is called Le Carrefour, 
— and sometimes even the Square, whatever might 
be its shape, — and around which the handsomest 
buildings of the village, now become a burgh, were 



2)uma6' Barl^ %itc in iparts 23 

erected, and in the middle of which rises a foun- 
tain, now decorated with a quadruple dial ; in short, 
they would have fixed the precise date when, near 
the modest village church, the first want of a peo- 
ple, arose the first turrets of the vast chateau, the 
last caprice of a king; a chateau which, after hav- 
ing been, as we have already said, by turns a royal 
and a princely residence, has in our days become 
a melancholy and hideous receptacle for mendicants 
under the direction of the Prefecture of the Seine, 
and to whom M. Marrast issues his mandates 
through delegates of whom he has not, nor prob- 
ably will ever have, either the time or the care to 
ascertain the names." 

The last sentence seems rather superfluous, — if 
it was justifiable, — but, after all, no harm probably 
was done, and Dumas as a rule was never vitupera- 
tive. 

Continuing, these first pages give us an account 
of the difficulties under which poor Louis Ange 
Pitou acquired his knowledge of Latin, which is 
remarkably like the account which Dumas gives in 
the " Memoires " of his early acquaintance with the 
classics. 

When Pitou leaves Haramont, his native village, 
and takes to the road, and visits Billot at *' Bruyere 
aux Loups," knowing well the road, as he did that 



24 2)umas' parts 

to Damploux, Compiegne, and Vivieres, he was but 
covering ground equally well known tO' Dumas' 
own youth. 

Finally, as he is joined by Billot en route for 
Paris, and takes the highroad from Villers-Cotte- 
rets, near Gondeville, passing Nanteuil, Dammartin, 
and Ermenonville, arriving at Paris at La Villette, 
he follows almost the exact itinerary taken by the 
venturesome Dumas on his runaway journey from 
the notary's office at Crepy-en-Valois. 

Crepy-en-Valois was the near neighbour of Vil- 
lers-Cotterets, which jealously attempted to rival it, 
and does even to-day. In " The Taking of the 
Bastille " Dumas only mentions it in connection 
with Mother Sabot's dne^ " which was shod," — 
the only ass which Pitou had ever known which 
wore shoes, — and performed the duty of carrying 
the mails between Crepy and Villers-Cotterets. 

At Villers-Cotterets one may come into close 
contact with the chateau which is referred to in the 
later pages of the " Vicomte de Bragelonne." 
" Situated in the middle of the forest, where we 
shall lead a most sentimental life, the very same 
where my grandfather," said Monseigneur the 
Prince, " Henri IV. did with ' La Belle Gabrielle.' " 

So far as lion-hunting goes, Dumas himself at 
an early age appears to have fallen into it. He 



Dumas' Barl^ %itc in Paris 25 

recalls in " Mes Memoires " the incident of Napo- 
leon I. passing through Villers-Cotterets just 
previous to the battle of Waterloo. 

" Nearly every one made a rush for the emperor's 
carriage," said he; *' naturally I v^as one of the 
first. . . . Napoleon's pale, sickly face seemed a 
block of ivory. . . . He raised his head and asked, 
* Where are we? ' * At Villers-Cotterets, Sire,' said 
a voice. * Go on.' " Again, a fev^ days later, as we 
learn from the " Memoires," " a horseman coated 
with mud rushes into the village; orders four horses 
for a carriage which is to follow, and departs. . . . 
A dull rumble draws near ... a carriage stops. 
. . . * Is it he — the emperor ? ' Yes, it was the 
emperor, in the same position as I had seen him 
before, exactly the same, pale, sickly, impassive; 
only the head droops rather more. ... * Where 
are we?' he asked. * At Villers-Cotterets, Sire.' 
' Go on.' " 

That evening Napoleon slept at the Elysee. It 
was but three months since he had returned from 
Elba, but in that time he came to an abyss which 
had engulfed his fortune. That abyss was Water- 
loo ; only saved to the allies — who at four in the 
afternoon were practically defeated — by the com- 
ing up of the Germans at six. 

Among the books of reference and contemporary 



26 Bumas' Paris 

works of a varying nature from which a writer in 
this generation must build up his facts anew, is 
found a wide difference in years as to the date of 
the birth of Dumas pere. 

As might be expected, the weight of favour Hes 
with the French authorities, though by no' means 
do they, even, agree among themselves. 

His friends have said that no unbiassed, or even 
complete biography of the author exists, even in 
French; and possibly this is so. There is about 
most of them a certain indefiuiteness and what 
Dumas himself called the " colour of sour grapes.'' 

The exact date of his birth, however, is unques- 
tionably 1802, if a photographic reproduction of 
his natal certificate, published in Charles Glinel's 
" Alex. Dumas et Son CEuvre," is what it seems 
to be. 

Dumas' aristocratic parentage — for such it truly 
was — has been the occasion of much scoffing and 
hard words. He pretended not to it himself, but it 
was founded on family history, as the records 
plainly tell, and whether Alexandre, the son of the 
brave General Dumas, the Marquis de la Pailleterie, 
was prone to acknowledge it or not does not matter 
in the least. The " feudal particle " existed plainly 
in his pedigree, and with no discredit tO' any con- 
cerned. 






^.^,. /^^^ -'^-^ ^-^'^'^t^t^^...— ^-^ 



FACSIMILE OF DUMAS' OWN STATEMENT OF HIS BIRTH 



Dumas' iBatl^ %itc in Paris 



27 



General Dumas, his wife, and his son are buried 
in the cemetery of Villers-Cotterets, where the ex- 
citing days of the childhood of Dumas, the ro- 
mancer, were spent, in a plot of ground " con- 
ceded in perpetuity to the family." The plot forms 
a rectangle six metres by five, surrounded by tower- 
ing pines. 

The three monuments contained therein are of 
the utmost simplicity, each consisting of an in- 
clined slab of stone. 

The inscriptions are as follows: 



FAMILLE 



Thomas- Alexandre 

Dumas 

Davy de la Pailleterie 

general d^ division 

ne k Jeremie 

He et Cote de Saint 

Dominique 

le 25 mars 1762, 

dec^d^ 

k Villers-Cotterets 

le 27 fevrier 1806 



ALEXANDRE 



Marie-Louise- Eliza- 
beth Labouret 
Epouse 
du general de division 
Dumas Davy 
de la Pailleterie 
nee 
k Villers-Cotterets 
le 4 juillet 1769 

dec^dde 
le ler aout 1838 



DUMAS 



Alexandre Dumas 

n^ k Villers-Cotterets 

le 24 juillet 1802 

d^c^d^ 

le 5 decembre 1870 

k Puys 

transf^r^ 

k 

Villers-Cotterets 

le 

15 avril 1872 



There would seem to be no good reason why 
a book treating of Dumas' Paris might not be 
composed entirely of quotations from Dumas' own 
works. For a fact, such a work would be no less 
valuable as a record than were it evolved by any 



28 Dumas' Paris 

other process. It would indeed be the best record 
that could possibly be made, for Dumas' topography 
was generally truthful if not always precise. 

There are, however, various contemporary side- 
lights which are thrown upon any canvas, no matter 
how small its area, and in this instance they seem 
to engulf even the personality of Dumas himself, 
to say nothing of his observations. 

Dumas was such a part and parcel of the literary 
life of the times in which he lived that mention 
can scarce be made of any contemporary event that 
has not some bearing on his life or work, or he 
with it, from the time when he first came to the 
metropolis (in 1822) at the impressionable age of 
twenty, until the end. 

It will be difficult, even, to condense the relative 
incidents which entered into his life within the 
confines of a single volume, to say nothing of a 
single chapter. The most that can be done is to 
present an abridgment which shall follow along 
the lines of some preconceived chronological ar- 
rangement. This is best compiled from Dumas' 
own words, leaving it to the additional references 
of other chapters to throw a sort of reflected glory 
from a more distant view-point. 

The reputation of Dumas with the merely casual 
reader rests upon his best-known romances, " Monte 



Dumas' iBatl^ %itc in Iparis 29 

Cristo," 1841; "Les Trois Mousquetaires/' 1844; 
" Vingt Ans Apres," 1845 ; " Le Vicomte de Brage- 
lonne," 1847; "La Dame de Monsoreau," 1847; 
and his dramas of " Henri III. et Sa Cour," 1829, 
"Antony," 1831, and " Kean," 1836. 

His memoirs, " Mes Memoires," are practically 
closed books to the mass of English readers — the 
word books is used advisedly, for this remarkable 
work is composed of twenty stout volumes, and they 
only cover ten years of the author's life. 

Therein is a mass of fact and fancy which may 
well be considered as fascinating as are the " ro- 
mances " themselves, and, though autobiographic, 
one gets a far more satisfying judgment of the man 
than from the various warped and distorted ac- 
counts which have since been published, either in 
French or English. 

Beginning with " Memories of My Childhood " 
(1802 — 06), Dumas launches into a few lines 
anent his first visit to Paris, in company with his 
father, though the auspicious — perhaps significant 
— event took place at a very tender age. It seems 
remarkable that he should have recalled it at all, 
but he was a remarkable man, and it seems not 
possible to ignore his words. 

" We set out for Paris, ah, that journey ! I 
recollect it perfectly. ... It was August or Sep- 



so 2)umas' parts 

tember, 1805. We got down in the Rue Thiroux 
at the house of one Dolle. ... I had been em- 
braced by one of the most noble ladies who ever 
lived, Madame la Marquise de Montesson, widow 
of Louis-Philippe d'Orleans. . . . The next day, 
putting Brune's sword between my legs and Murat's 
hat upon my head, I galloped around the table; 
when my father said, ^ Never forget this, my hoy.' 
. . . My father consulted Corvisart, and attempted 
to see the emperor, but Napoleon, the quondam 
general, had now become the emperor, and he re- 
fused to see my father. . . . To where did we re- 
turn? I believe Villers-Cotterets." 

Again on the 26th of March, 18 13, Dumas en- 
tered Paris in company with his mother, now 
widowed. He says of this visit: 

" I was delighted at the prospect of this my 
second visit. ... I have but one recollection, full 
of light and poetry, when, with a flourish of 
trumpets, a waving of banners, and shouts of 
* Long live the King of Rome,' was lifted up above 
the heads of fifty thousand of the National Guard 
the rosy face and the fair, curly head of a child of 
three years — the infant son of the great Napoleon. 
. 4 . Behind him was his mother, — that woman 
so fatal to France, as have been all the daughters 
of the Caesars, Anne of Austria, Marie Antoinette, 



Juntas' Barl^ %iU in iParts 31 

and Marie Louise, — an indistinct, insipid face. 
. . . The next day we started home again." 

Through the influence of General Foy, an old 
friend of his father's, Dumas succeeded in obtaining 
employment in the Orleans Bureau at the Palais 
Royal. 

His occupation there appears not to have been 
unduly arduous. The offices were in the right-hand 
corner of the second courtyard of the Palais Royal. 
He remained here in this bureau for a matter of 
five years, and, as he said, " loved the hour when 
he came to the office," because his immediate supe- 
rior, Lassagne, - — a contributor to the Drapeau 
Blanc, — was the friend and intimate of Desau- 
giers, Theaulon, Armand Gouffe, Brozier, Rouge- 
mont, and all the vaudevillists of the time. 

Dumas' meeting with the Due d'Orleans — after- 
ward Louis-Philippe — is described in his own 
words thus : " In two words I was introduced. 
' My lord, this is M. Dumas, whom I mentioned 
to you. General Foy's protege.' * You are the son 
of a brave man,' said the due, * whom Bonaparte, 
it seems, left to die of starvation.' . . . The due 
gave Oudard a nod, which I took to mean, * He will 
do, he's by no means bad for a provincial' " And 
so it was that Dumas came immediately under the 



32 2)umas^ t^^tis 

eye of the due, engaged as he was at that time on 
some special clerical work in connection with the 
due's provincial estates. 

The affability of Dumas, so far as he himself was 
concerned, was a foregone conclusion. In the 
great world in which he moved he knew all sorts 
and conditions of men. He had his enemies, it is 
true, and many of them, but he himself was the 
enemy of no man. To English-speaking folk he 
was exceedingly agreeable, because, — quoting his 
own words, — said he, " It was a part of the debt 
which I owed to Shakespeare and Scott." Some- 
thing of the egoist here, no doubt, but gracefully 
done nevertheless. 

With his temperament it was perhaps but natural 
that Dumas should have become a romancer. This 
was of itself, maybe, a foreordained sequence of 
events, but no man thinks to-day that, leaving con- 
tributary conditions, events, and opportunities out 
of the question, he shapes his own fate; there are 
accumulated heritages of even distant ages to con- 
tend with. In Dumas' case there was his heritage 
of race and colour, refined, perhaps, by a long 
drawn out process, but, as he himself tells in " Mes 
Memoires," his mother's fear was that her child 
would be born black, and he was^ or, at least, pur- 
ple, as he himself afterward put it. 



CHAPTER III. 

DUMAS^ LITERARY CAREER 

JUST how far Dumas' literary ability was 
an inheritance, or growth of his early en- 
vironment, will ever be an open question. 
It is a manifest fact that he had breathed some- 
thing of the spirit of romance before he came to 
Paris. 

Although it was not acknowledged until 1856, 
" The Wolf-Leader " was a development of a 
legend told to him in his childhood. Recalling 
then the incident of his boyhood days, and calling 
into recognition his gift of improvisation, he wove a 
tale which reflected not a little of the open-air life 
of the great forest of Villers-Cotterets, near the 
place of his birth. 

Here, then, though it was fifty years after his 
birth, and thirty after he had thrust himself 
on the great world of Paris, the scenes of his child- 
hood were reproduced in a wonderfully romantic 

33 



34 2)umas' parts 

and weird tale — which, to the best of the writer's 
behef, has not yet appeared in EngHsh. 

To some extent it is possible that there is not a 
little of autobiography therein, not so much, per- 
haps, as Dickens put into " David Copperfield," but 
the suggestion is thrown out for what it may be 
worth. 

It is, furthermore, possible that the historic asso- 
ciations of the town of Villers-Cotterets — which 
was but a little village set in the midst of the sur- 
rounding forest — may have been the prime cause 
which influenced and inspired the mind of Dumas 
toward the romance of history. 

In point of chronology, among the earliest of the 
romances were those that dealt with the fortunes of 
the house of Valois (fourteenth century), and here, 
in the little forest town of Villers-Cotterets, was 
the magnificent manor-house which belonged to the 
Dues de Valois; so it may be presumed that the 
sentiment of early associations had somewhat to do 
with these literary efforts. 

All his life Dumas devotedly admired the senti- 
ment and fancies which foregathered in this forest, 
whose very trees and stones he knew so well. 
From his "Memoires" we learn of his indignation at 
the destruction of its trees and much of its natural 
beauty. He says : 



Dumas' Xtterar^ Career 35 

" This park, planted by Franqois L, was cut 
down by Louis-Philippe. Trees, under whose 
shade once reclined Frangois I. and Madame 
d'Etampes, Henri II. and Diane de Poitiers, 
Henri IV. and Gabrielle d'Estrees — you would 
have believed that a Bourbon would have respected 
you. But over and above your inestimable value 
of poetry and memories, you had, unhappily, a 
material value. You beautiful beeches with your 
polished silvery cases ! you beautiful oaks with your 
sombre wrinkled bark ! — you were worth a hun- 
dred thousand crowns. The King of France, who, 
with his six millions of private revenue, was too 
poor to keep you — the King of France sold you. 
For my part, had you been my sole possession, I 
would have preserved you; for, poet as I am, one 
thing that I would set before all the gold of the 
earth: the murmur of the wind in your leaves; 
the shadow that you made to flicker beneath my 
feet ; the visions, the phantoms, which, at eventide, 
betwixt the day and night, in the doubtful hour of 
twilight, would glide between your age-long trunks 
as glide the shadows of the ancient Abencerrages 
amid the thousand columns of Cordova's royal 
mosque." 

What wonder, with these lines before one, that 
the impressionable Dumas was so taken with the 



36 Dumas' parts 

romance of life and so impracticable in other 
ways. 

From the fact that no thorough biography of 
Dumas exists, it will be difficult to trace the fluctua- 
tions of his literary career with preciseness. It is 
not possible even with the twenty closely packed vol- 
umes of the " Memoires " — themselves incomplete 

— before one. All that a biographer can get from, 
this treasure-house are facts, — rather radiantly 
coloured in some respects, but facts nevertheless, 

— which are put together in a not very coherent 
or compact form. 

They do, to be sure, recount many of the inci- 
dents and circumstances attendant upon the writing 
and publication of many of his works, and because 
of this they immediately become the best of all 
sources of supply. It is to be regretted that these 
" Memoires " have not been translated, though it is 
doubtful if any publisher of English works could 
get his money back from the transaction. 

Other clues as to his emotions, and with no un- 
certain references to incidents of Dumas' literary 
career, are found in " Mes Betes," " Ange Pitou," 
the " Causeries," and the " Travels." These com- 
prise many volumes not yet translated. 

Dumas was readily enough received into the folds 









FACSIMILE OF A MANUSCRIPT PAGE FROM ONE OF 
DUMAS' PLAYS 



Dumas' OLiterar^ Career 37 

of the great. Indeed, as we know, he made his 
entree under more than ordinary, if not exceptional, 
circumstances, and his connection with the great 
names of Hterature and statecraft extended from 
Hugo to Garibaldi. 

As for his own predilections in literature, Dumas' 
own voice is practically silent, though we know that 
he was a romanticist pure and simple, and drew no 
inspiration or encouragement from Voltairian senti- 
ments. If not essentially religious, he at least be- 
lieved in its principles, though, as a warm admirer 
has said, " He had no liking for the celibate and 
bookish life of the churchman." 

Dumas does not enter deeply into the subject 
of ecclesiasticism in France. His most elaborate 
references are to the Abbey of Ste. Genevieve — 
since disappeared in favour of the hideous pagan 
Pantheon — and its relics and associations, in " La 
Dame de Monsoreau." Other of the romances 
from time to time deal with the subject of religion 
more or less, as was bound to be, considering the 
times of which he wrote, of Mazarin, Richelieu, De 
Rohan, and many other churchmen. 

Throughout the thirties Dumas was mostly oc- 
cupied with his plays, the predominant, if not the 
most sonorous note, being sounded by " Antony." 

As a novelist his star shone brightest in the dec- 



3^ Dumas' f>ads 

ade following, commencing with " Monte Cristo," 
in 1 84 1, and continuing through " Le Vicomte de 
Bragelonne " and " La Dam;e de Monsoreau," in 

1847. 

During these strenuous years Dumas produced 
the flower of his romantic garland — omitting, of 
course, certain trivial and perhaps unworthy trifles, 
among which are usually considered, rightly enough, 
" Le Capitaine Paul" (Paul Jones) and "Jeanne 
d'Arc." At this period, however, he produced the 
charming and exotic " Black Tulip," which has 
since come to be a reality. The best of all, though, 
are admittedly the Mousquetaire cycle, the volumes 
dealing with the fortunes of the Valois line, and, 
again, " Monte Cristo." 

By 1830, Dumas, eager, as it were, to experience 
something of the valiant boisterous spirit of the 
characters of his romances, had thrown himself 
heartily into an alliance with the opponents of 
Louis-Philippe. Orleanist successes, however, left 
him to fall back upon his pen. 

In 1844, having finished " Monte Cristo," he fol- 
lowed it by " Les Trois Mousquetaires," and before 
the end of the same year had put out forty 
volumes, by what means, those who will read the 
scurrilous " Fabrique des Romans '' — and properly 
discount it — may learn. 



Dumas' Xtterat^ Career 39 

Tlie publication of " Monte Cristo " and " Les 
Trois Mousquetaires " as newspaper feuilletons, in 
1844 — 45, met with amazing success, and were, 
indeed, written from day to day, to keep pace with 
the demands of the press. 

Here is, perhaps, an opportune moment to digress 
into the ethics of the profession of the " Hterary 
ghost," and but for the fact that the subject has 
been pretty well thrashed out before, — not only 
with respect to Dumas, but to others as well, — 
it might justifiably be included here at some length, 
but shall not be, however. 

The busy years from 1840 — 50 could indeed be 
" explained " — if one were sure of his facts ; but 
beyond the circumstances, frequently availed of, it 
is admitted, of Dumas having made use of secre- 
tarial assistance in the productions which were ulti- 
mately to be fathered by himself, there is little but 
jealous and spiteful hearsay to lead one to sup- 
pose that he made any secret of the fact that he 
had some very considerable assistance in the pro- 
duction of the seven hundred volumes which, at 
a late period in his life, he claimed to Have pro- 
duced. 

The " Maquef affaire/' of course, proclaims the 
whilom Augustus Mackeat as a collaborateur; still 
the ingenuity of Dumas shines forth through the 



40 Dumas' ipari5 

warp and woof In an unmistakable manner, and he 
who would know more of the pros and cons is re- 
ferred to the " Mais on Dumas et CieJ' 

Maquet was manifestly what we have come to 
know as a " hack," though the species is not so 
very new — nor so very rare. The great libraries 
are full of them the whole world over, and very 
useful, though irresponsible and ungrateful persons, 
many of them have proved to be. Maquet, at any 
rate, served some sort of a useful purpose, and he 
certainly was a confidant of the great romancer dur- 
ing these very years, but that his was the mind and 
hand that evolved or worked out the general plan 
and detail of the romances is well-nigh impossible 
to believe, when one has digested both sides of the 
question. 

An English critic of no inconsiderable knowledgfe 
has thrown in his lot recently with the claims of 
Maquet, and given the sole and entire production 
of " Les Trois Mousquetaires," " Monte Cristo," 
" La Dame de Monsoreau," and many other of 
Dumas' works of this period, to him, placing him, 
indeed, with Shakespeare, whose plays certain gulli- 
ble persons believe to have been written by Bacon. 
The flaw in the theory is apparent when one realizes 
that the said Maquet was no myth — he was, in fact, 
a very real person, and a literary personage of a cer- 



2)umas' Xtterari^ Career 41 

tain ability. It is strange, then, that if he were 
the producer of, say " Les Trois Mousquetaires," 
which was issued ostensibly as the work of Dumas, 
that he wrote nothing under his own name that 
was at all comparable therewith; and stranger 
still, that he was able to repeat this alleged success 
with " Monte Cristo," or the rest of the Mousque- 
taire series, and yet not be able to do the same sort 
of a feat when playing the game by himself. One 
instance would not prove this contention, but sev- 
eral are likely to not only give it additional strength, 
but to practically demonstrate the correct conclu- 
sion. 

The ethics of plagiarism are still greater and more 
involved than those which make justification for 
the employment of one who makes a profession of 
library research, but it is too involved and too vast 
to enter into here, with respect to accusations of its 
nature which were also made against Dumas. 

As that new star which has so recently risen 
out of the East — Mr. Kipling — has said, " They 
took things where they found them." This is per- 
haps truthful with regard to most literary folk, who 
are continually seeking a new line of thought. 
Scott did it, rather generously one might think; 
even Stevenson admitted that he was greatly in- 
debted to Washington Irving and Poe for certain 



42 2)ttmas* Iparis 

of the details of " Treasure Island " — though 
there is absolutely no question but that it was a 
sort of unconscious absorption, to put it rather 
unscientifically. The scientist himself calls it the 
workings of the subconscious self. 

As before said, the Maquet affaire was a most 
complicated one, and it shall have no lengthy con- 
sideration here. Suffice to say that, when a case 
was made by Maquet in court, in 1856 — 58, Maquet 
lost. " It is not justice that has won," said Maquet, 
" but Dumas." 

Edmond About has said that Maquet lived to 
speak kindly of Dumas, " as did his legion of other 
collaborateurs; and the proudest of them congrat- 
ulate themselves on having been trained in so good 
a school." This being so, it is hard to see anything 
very outrageous or preposterous in the proce- 
dure. 

Blaze de Bury has described Dumas' method 
thus : 

" The plot was worked over by Dumas and his 
colleague, when it was finally drafted by the other 
and afterward rewritten by Dumas." 

M. About, too, corroborates Blaze de Bury's 
statement, so it thus appears legitimately explained. 
Dumas at least supplied the ideas and the esprit. 

In Dumas' later years there is perhaps more jus- 



Dumas' Xtterarp Career 43 

tification for the thought that as his indolence in- 
creased — though he was never actually inert, at 
least not until sickness drew him down — the au- 
thorship of the novels became more complex. Blaze 
de Bury put them down to the " Dumas-Legion," 
and perhaps with some truth. They certainly have 
not the vim and fire and temperament of individ- 
uality of those put forth from 1840 to 1850. 

Dumas wrote fire and impetuosity into the veins 
of his heroes, perhaps some of his very own viva- 
cious spirit. It has been said that his moral code 
was that of the camp or the theatre; but that is 
an ambiguity, and it were better not dissected. 

Certainly he was no prude or Puritan, not more 
so, at any rate, than were Burns, Byron, or Poe, 
but the virtues of courage, devotion, faithfulness, 
loyalty, and friendship were his, to a degree hardly 
excelled by any of whom the written record of 
cameraderie exists. 

Dumas has been jibed and jeered at by the super- 
cilious critics ever since his first successes appeared, 
but it has not leavened his reputation as the first 
romancer of his time one single jot; and within 
the past few years we have had a revival of the 
character of true romance — perhaps the first true 
revival since Dumas' time — in M. Rostand's 
" Cyrano de Bergerac." 



44 Dumas' parts 

We have had, too, the works of Zola, who, indom- 
itable, industrious, and sincere as he undoubtedly 
was, will have been long forgotten when the master- 
pieces of Dumas are being read and reread. The 
Mousquetaire cycle, the Valois romances, and 
" Monte Cristo " stand out by themselves above 
all others of his works, and have had the appro- 
bation of such discerning fellow craftsmen as 
George Sand, Thackeray, and Stevenson, all of 
whom may be presumed to have judged from en- 
tirely different points of view. Thackeray, indeed, 
plainly indicated his greatest admiration for " La 
Tulipe Noire/' a work which in point of time came 
somewhat later. At this time Dumas had built his 
own Chalet de Monte Cristo near St. Germain, a 
sort of a Gallic rival to Abbotsford. It, and the 
" Theatre Historique," founded by Dumas, came tO' 
their disastrous end in the years immediately fol- 
lowing upon the Revolution of 1848, when Dumas 
fled to Brussels and began his " Memoires." He 
also founded a newspaper called Le Mousquetaire, 
which failed, else he might have retrenched and 
satisfied his creditors — at least in part. 

He travelled in Russia, and upon his return wrote 
of his journey to the Caspian. In i860 he obtained 
an archaeological berth in Italy, and edited a Gari- 
baldian newspaper. 



Dumas' Xttetar^ Career 45 

By 1864, the " Director of Excavations at 
Naples/' which was Dumas' official title, fell out 
with the new government which had come in, and 
he left his partisan journal and the lava-beds of 
Pompeii for Paris and the literary arena again; 
but the virile power of his early years was gone, 
and Dumas never again wielded the same pen 
which had limned the features of Athos, Porthos, 
Aramis, and D'Artagnan. 

In 1844 Dumas participated in a sort of person- 
ally-conducted Bonapartist tour to the Mediter- 
ranean, in company with the son of Jerome Napo- 
leon. On this journey Dumas first saw the island of 
Monte Cristo and the Chateau d'lf, which lived so 
fervently in his memory that he decided that their 
personality should be incorporated in the famous 
tale which was already formulating itself in his 
brain. 

Again, this time in company with the Due de 
Montpensier, he journeyed to the Mediterranean, 
*^ did " Spain, and crossed over to Algiers. When 
he returned he brought back the celebrated vulture, 
" Jugurtha," whose fame was afterward perpet- 
uated in " Mes Betes." 

That there was a deal of reality in the character- 
ization and the locale of Dumas' romances will not 
be denied by any who have acquaintance therewith. 



46 Dumas' parts 

Dumas unquestionably took his material where he 
found it, and his wonderfully retentive memory, his 
vast capacity for work, and his wide experience 
and extensive acquaintance provided him material 
that many another would have lacked. 

M. de Chaffault tells of his having accompanied 
Dumas by road from Sens to Joigny, Dumas being 
about to appeal to the republican constituency of 
that place for their support of him as a candidate 
for the parliamentary elections. 

*' In a short time we were on the road," said the 
narrator, " and the first stage of three hours seemed 
to me only as many minutes. Whenever we passed 
a country-seat, out came a lot of anecdotes and 
legends connected with its owners, interlarded with 
quaint fancies and epigrams." 

Aside from the descriptions of the country around 
about Crepy, Compiegne, and Villers-Cotterets 
which he wove into the Valois tales, " The Taking 
of the Bastille," and " The Wolf-Leader," there is 
a strong note of personality in " Georges ; " some 
have called it autobiography. 

The tale opens in the far-distant Isle of France, 
called since the English occupation Mauritius, and 
in the narrative of the half-caste Georges Munier 
are supposed to be reflected many of the personal 
incidents of the life of the author. 



2)ttmas' Xiterar^ Career 4l 

This story may or may not be a mere repetition of 
certain of the incidents of the strug-gle of the 
mulatto against the barrier of the white aristocracy, 
and may have been an echo in Dumas' own Hfe. 
It is repeated it may have been this, or it may have 
been much more. Certain it is, there is an under- 
lying motive which could only have been realized 
to the full extent expressed therein by one who 
knew and felt the pangs of the encounter with a 
world which only could come to one of genius 
who was by reason of race or creed outclassed by 
his contemporaries; and therein is given the most 
vivid expression of the rise of one who had every- 
thing against him at the start. 

This was not wholly true of Dumas himself, to 
be sure, as he was endowed with certain influential 
friends. Still it was mainly through his own efforts 
that he was able to prevail upon the old associates 
and friends of the dashing General Dumas, his 
father, to give him his first lift along the rough 
and stony literary pathway. 

In this book there is a curious interweaving of 
the life and colour which may have had not a little 
to do with the actual life which obtained with 
respect to his ancestors, and as such, and the various 
descriptions of negro and Creole life, the story be- 



4^ l)umas* ©atis 

comes at once a document of prime interest and 
importance. 

Since Dumas himself has explained and justified 
the circumstance out of which grew the conception 
of the D'Artagnan romances, it is perhaps advisable 
that some account should be given of the original 
D'Artagnan. 

Primarily, the interest in Dumas' romance of 
" Les Trois Mousquetaires " is as great, if not 
greater, with respect to the characters as it is with 
the scenes in which they lived and acted their stren- 
uous parts. In addition, there is the profound 
satisfaction of knowing that the rollicking and gal- 
lant swashbuckler has come down to us from the 
pages of real life, as Dumas himself recounts in 
the preface to the Colman Levy edition of the book. 
The statement of Dumas is explicit enough; there 
is no mistaking his words which open the preface: 

" Dans laquelle 
II est ^tabli que, malgr^ leurs noms en os et en /j, 
Les hdros de I'histoire 
Que nous allons avoir I'honneur de raconter k nos lecteurs; 
N'ont rien de mythologique." 

The contemporary facts which connect the real 
Comte d' Artagnan with romances are as follows : 
Charles de Batz de Castlemore, Comte d'Arta- 




D'ARTAGNAN 



2)umas' Xtterar^ Career 49 

gnan, received his title from the Httle village of 
Artagnan, near the Gascon town of Orthez in the 
present department of the Hautes-Pyrenees. He 
was born in 1623. Dumas, with an author's license, 
made his chief figure a dozen years older, for the 
real D'Artagnan was but five years old at the time 
of the siege of La Rochelle of which Dumas makes 
mention. On the whole, the romance is near enough 
to reality to form an ample endorsement of the 
author's verity. 

The real D'Artagnan made his way to Paris, as 
did he of the romance. Here he met his fellow 
Beamais, one M. de Treville, captain of the king's 
musketeers, and the illustrious individuals, Armand 
de Sillegue d'Athos, a Bearnais nobleman who died 
in 1645, and whose direct descendant, Colonel de 
Sillegue, commanded, according to the French army 
lists of a recent date, a regiment of French cavalry ; 
Henry d'Aramits, lay abbe of Oloron; and Jean 
de Portu, all of them probably neighbours in D'Ar- 
tagnan's old home. 

D'Artagnan could not then have been at the siege 
of La Rochelle, but from the " Memoires de M. 
d'Artagnan," of which Dumas writes in his preface, 
we learn of his feats at arms at Arras, Valenciennes, 
Douai, and Lille, all places where once and again 
Dumas placed the action of the novels. 



50 2)umas' Paris 

The real D'Artagnan died, sword in hand, " in 
the imminent deadly breach " at Maestricht, in 1673. 
He served, too, under Prince Rupert in the Civil 
War, and frequently visited England, where he had 
an affaire with a certain Milady, which is again 
reminiscent of the pages of Dumas. 

This D'Artagnan in the flesh married Charlotte 
Anne de Chanlecy, and the last of his direct de- 
scendants died in Paris in the latter years of the 
eighteenth century, but collateral branches of the 
family appear still to exist in Gascony, and there 
v/as a certain Baron de Batz, a Bearnais, who made 
a daring attempt tO' save Marie Antoinette in 1793. 

The inception of the whole work in Dumas' mind, 
as he says, came to him while he was making re- 
search in the " Bibliotheque Royale " for his his- 
tory of Louis XIV. 

Thus from these beginnings grew up that series 
of romances which gave undying fame to Alexandre 
Dumas, and to the world of readers a series of 
characters and scenes associated with the mediaeval 
history of France, which, before or since, have not 
been equalled. 

Alexandre Dumas has been described as some- 
thing of the soldier, the cook, and the traveller, 
more of the journalist, diplomatist, and poet, and, 
more than all else, the dramatist, romancer, and 



Dumas^ Xiterar^ dareet 51 

raconteitr. He himself has said that he was a " veri- 
table Wandering Jew of literature." 

His versatility in no way comprised his abilities, 
and, while conceit and egoism played a not unim- 
portant share in his make-up, his affability — when 
he so chose — caused him to be ranked highly in 
the estimation of his equals and contemporaries. 
By the cur-dogs, which always snap at the heels 
of a more splendid animal, he was not ranked so 
high. 

Certain of these were for ever twitting him pub- 
licly of his creed, race, and foibles. It is recorded 
by Theodore de Bauville, in his " Odes," that one 
Jacquot hailed Dumas in the open street with a 
ribald jeer, when, calmly turning to his detractor, 
Dumas said, simply : " Hast thou dined to-day, 
Jacquot? " Then It was that this said Jacquot pub- 
lished the slanderous brochure, '"'' La Maison Dumas 
et Cie/' which has gone down as something con- 
siderable of a sensation in the annals of literary 
history; so much so, indeed, that most writers 
who have had occasion to refer to Dumas' literary 
career have apparently half-believed its accusa- 
tions, which, truth to tell, may have had some bear- 
ing on " things as they were," had they but been put 
forward as a bit of temperate criticism rather than 
as a sweeping condemnation. 



52 2>ttma6' ipatfs 

To give the reader an idea of the Dumas of 1840, 
one can scarcely do better than present his portrait 
as sketched by De Villemessant, the founder and 
brilliant editor of the Figaro^ when Dumas was at 
the height of his glory, and a grasp of his hand 
was better than a touch of genius to those receiv- 
ing it: 

" At no time and among no people had it till then 
been granted to a writer to achieve fame in every 
direction; in serious drama and in comedy, and 
novels of adventure and of domestic interest, in 
humourous stories and in pathetic tales, Alexandre 
Dumas had been alike successful. The frequenters 
of the Theatre Frangais owed him evenings of 
delight, but so did the general public as well. 
Dumas alone had had the power to touch, interest, 
or amuse, not only Paris or France, but the whole 
world. If all other novelists had been swallowed 
up in an earthquake, this one would have been able 
to supply the leading libraries of Europe. If all 
other dramatists had died, Alexandre Dumas could 
have occupied every stage; his magic name on a 
playbill or affixed to a newspaper feuilleton en- 
sured the sale of that issue or a full house at the 
theatre. He was king of the stage, prince of feuil- 
letonists, the literary man par excellence, in that 
Paris then so full of intellect. When he opened 



Dumas' QLitetatij dateet 53 

his lips the most eloquent held their breath to listen ; 
when he entered a room the wit of man, the beauty 
of woman, the pride of life, grew dim iru the ra- 
diance of his glory; he reigned over Paris in right 
of his sovereign intellect, the only monarch who 
for an entire century had understood how to draw 
to himself the adoration of all classes of society, 
from the Faubourg St. Germain to the Batignolles. 

" Just as he united in himself capabilities of many 
kinds, so he displayed in his person the perfection 
of many races. From the negro he had derived the 
frizzled hair and those thick lips on which Europe 
had laid a delicate smile of ever- varying meaning; 
from the southern races he derived his vivacity of 
gesture and speech, from the northern his solid 
frame and broad shoulders and a figure which, 
while it showed no lack of French elegance, was 
powerful enough to have made green with envy 
the gentlemen of the Russian Life-Guards." 

Dumas' energy and output were tremendous, as 
all know. It is recorded that on one occasion, — in 
the later years of his life, when, as was but natural, 
he had tired somewhat, — after a day at la chasse, 
he withdrew to a cottage near by to rest until the 
others should rejoin him, after having finished their 
sport. This they did within a reasonably short 
time, — whether one hour or two is not stated with 



54 Dumas' parts 

definiteness, — when they found him sitting before 
the fire " twirhng his thumbs." On being interro- 
gated, he rephed that he had not been sitting there 
long; in fact, he had just written the first act of 
a new play. 

The French journal, La Revue, tells the following 
incident, which sounds new. Some years before his 
death, Dumas had written a somewhat quaint letter 
to Napoleon III., apropos of a play which had been 
condemned by the French censor. In this epistle 
he commenced : 

" Sire : — In 1830, and, indeed, even to-day, 
there are three men at the head of French literature. 
These three men are Victor Hugo, Lamartine, and 
myself. Although I am the least of the three, the 
five continents have made me the most popular, 
probably because the one was a thinker, the other 
a dreamer, while I am merely a writer of common- 
place tales." 

This letter goes on to plead the cause of his 
play, and from this circumstance the censorship 
was afterward removed. 

A story is told of an incident which occurred 
at a rehearsal of " Les Trois Mousquetaires " at the 
" Ambigu." This story is strangely reminiscent of 
another incident which happened at a rehearsal of 
Halevy's " Guido et Genevra," but it is still worth 



Dumas' Xiterar^ Career ss 

recounting here, if only to emphasize the indom- 
itable energy and perspicacity of Dumas. 

It appears that a pompier — that gaudy, glisten- 
ing fireman who' is always present at functions of 
all sorts on the continent of Europe — who was 
watching the rehearsal, was observed by Dumas to 
suddenly leave his point of vantage and retire. 
Dumas followed him and inquired his reason for 
withdrawing. " What made you go away ? " Dumas 
asked oi him. '' Because that last act did not in- 
terest me so much as the others,'' was the answer. 
Whereupon Dumas sent for the prompt-book and 
threw that portion relating to that particular tableau 
into the fire, and forthwith set about to rewrite it 
on the spot. ^' It does not amuse the pompier'' 
said Dumas, " but I know what it wants." An hour 
and a half later, at the finish of the rehearsal, the 
actors were given their new words for the seventh 
tableau. 

In spite of the varied success with which his 
plays met, Dumas was, we may say, first of all a 
dramatist, if construction of plot and the moving 
about of dashing and splendid figures counts for 
anything; and it most assuredly does. 

This very same qualification is what makes the 
romances so vivid and thrilling; and they do -not 
falter either in accessory or fact. 



5 6 S)umas' Paris 

The cloaks of his swashbucklering heroes are 
always the correct shade of scarlet; their rapiers, 
their swords, or their pistols are always rightly 
tuned, and their entrances and their exits correctly 
and most appropriately timed. 

When his characters represent the poverty of a 
tatterdemalion, they do it with a sincerity that is 
inimitable, and the lusty throatings of a D'Artagnan 
are never a hollow mockery of something they are 
not. 

Dumas drew his characters of the stage and his 
personages of the romances with the brilliance and 
assurance of a Velasquez, rather than with the 
finesse of a Praxiteles, and for that reason they live 
and introduce themselves as cosmopolitans, and are 
to be appreciated only as one studies or acquires 
something of the spirit from which they have been 
evolved. 

Of Dumas' own uproarious good nature many 
have written. Albert Vandam tells of a certain 
occasion when he went to call upon the novelist 
at St. Germain, — and he reckoned Dumas the most 
lovable and genial among all of his host of ac- 
quaintances in the great world of Paris, — that he 
overheard, as he was entering the study, " a loud 
burst of laughter." " I had sooner wait until mon- 
sieur's visitors are gone," said he. ** Monsieur has 



Dumas' %itcxax^ Career s7 

no visitors," said the servant. " Monsieur often 
laughs Hke that at his work." 

Dumas as a man of affairs or as a pohtician was 
not the success that he was in the world of letters. 
His activities were great, and his enthusiasm for 
any turn of affairs with which he allied himself 
remarkable; but, whether he was en voyage on a 
whilom political mission, at work as " Director of 
Excavations " at Pompeii, or founding or conduct- 
ing a new journal or a new playhouse, his talents 
were manifestly at a discount. In other words, he 
was singularly unfit for public life; he was not 
an organizer, nor had he executive ability, though 
he had not a little of the skill of prophecy and fore^ 
sight as to many turns of fortune's wheel with 
respect to world power and the comity of nations. 

Commenting upon the political state of Europe, 
he said : " Geographically, Prussia has the form of 
a serpent, and, like it, she appears to be asleep, in 
order to gain strength to swallow everything around 
her." All of his prophecy was not fulfilled, to be 
sure, but a huge slice was fed into her maw from 
out of the body of France, and, looking at things 
at a time fifty years ahead of that of which Dumas 
wrote, — that is, before the Franco-Prussian War, 
— it would seem as though the serpent's appetite 
was still unsatisfied. 



58 Bumas' Iparts 

In 1847, when Dumas took upon himself to wish 
for a seat in the government, he besought the sup^ 
port of the constituency of the borough in which he 
had Hved — St. Germain. But St. Germain denied 
it him — " on moral grounds." In the following 
year, when Louis-Philippe had abdicated, he made 
the attempt once again. 

The republican constituency of Joigny challenged 
him with respect to his title of Marquis de la Paille- 
terie, and his having been a secretary in the Or- 
leans Bureau. The following is his reply — verba- 
tim — as publicly delivered at a meeting of electors, 
and is given here as illustrating well the earnest- 
ness and devotion to a code which many Puritan 
and prudish moralists have themselves often ig- 
nored : 

" I was formerly called the Marquis de la Paille- 
terie, no doubt. It was my father's name, and one 
of which I was very proud, being then unable to 
claim a glorious one of my own make. But at 
present, when I am somebody, I call myself Alex- 
andre Dumas, and nothing more; and every one 
knows me, yourselves among the rest — you, you 
absolute nobodies, who have come here merely to 
boast, to-morrow, after having given me insult to- 
night, that you have known the great Dumas. If 
such were your avowed ambition, you could have 



5)umas' Xtterarp Career 59 

satisfied it without having failed in the common 
courtesies of gentlemen. There is no doubt, either, 
about my having been a secretary to the Due 
d'Orleans, and that I have received many favours 
from his family. If you are ignorant of the mean- 
ing of the phrase, * The memories of the heart,' 
allow me, at least, to proclaim loudly that I am not, 
and that I entertain toward this family of royal 
blood all the devotion of an honourable man." 

That Dumas was ever accused of making use of 
the work of others, of borrowing ideas wherever he 
found them, and, indeed, of plagiarism itself, — 
which is the worst of all, — has been mentioned 
before, and the argument for or against is not in- 
tended to be continued here. 

Dumas himself has said much upon the subject 
in defence of his position, and the contemporary 
scribblers of the time have likewise had their say 
— and it was not brief; but of all that has been 
written and said, the following is pertinent and 
deliciously naive, and, coming from Dumas himself, 
has value: 

" One morning I had only just opened my eyes 
when my servant entered my bedroom and brought 
me a letter upon which was written the word urgent. 
He drew back the curtains ; the weather — doubt- 



6o Bumas' Paris 

less by some mistake — was fine, and the brilliant 
sunshine entered the room like a conqueror. I 
rubbed my eyes and looked at the letter to see who 
had sent it, astonished at the same time that there 
should be only one. The handwriting was quite 
unknown to me. Having turned it over and over 
for a minute or two, trying to guess whose the 
writing was, I opened it and this is what I found : 

" * Sir : — I have read your " Three Musketeers," 
being well to do, and having plenty of spare time 
on my hands — * 

"('Lucky fellow!' said I; and I continued 
reading. ) 

" ' I admit that I found it fairly amusing ; but, 
having plenty of time before me, I was curious 
enough to wish to know if you really did find them 
in the " Memoirs of M. de La Fere." As I was 
living in Carcassonne, I wrote to one of my friends 
in Paris to go to the Bibliotheque Royale, and ask 
for these memoirs, and to write and let me know 
if you had really and truly borrowed your facts 
from them. My friend, whom I can trust, replied 
that you had copied them word for word, and that 
it is what you authors always do. So I give you 
fair notice, sir, that I have told people all about it 



Bumas' Xttetar^ Career 6i 

at Carcassonne, and, if it occurs again, we shall 
cease subscribing to the Siecle. 

" * Yours sincerely. 



"I rang the bell. 

" * If any more letters come for me to-day,' said 
I to the servant, * you will keep them back, and only 
give them to me sometime when I seem a bit too 
happy.' 

" * Manuscripts as well, sir ? ' 

" * Why do you ask that question ? ' 

" ' Because some one has brought one this very 
moment.' 

" * Good ! that is the last straw ! Put it some- 
where where it won't be lost, but don't tell me 
where.' 

" He put it on the mantelpiece, which proved that 
my servant was decidedly a man of intelligence. 

" It was half-past ten ; I went to the window. As 
I have said, it was a beautiful day. It appeared as 
if the sun had won a permanent victory over the 
clouds. The passers-by all looked happy, or, at 
least, contented. 

" Like everybody else, I experienced a desire to 
take the air elsewhere than at my window, so I 
'dressed, and went out. 

" As chance would have it — for when I go out 



62 2)uma6' Paris 

for a walk I don't care whether it is in one street 
or another — as chance would have it, I say, I 
passed the Bibliotheque Roy ale. 

" I went in, and, as usual, found Paris, who came 
up to me with a charming smile. 

" ' Give me,' said I, ' the " Memoirs of La Fere." ' 

" He looked at me for a moment as if he thought 
I was crazy; then, with the utmost gravity, he 
said, * You know very well they don't exist, because 
you said yourself they did ! ' 

" His speech, though brief, was decidedly pithy. 

" By way of thanks I made Paris a gift of the 
autograph I had received from Carcassonne. 

" When he had finished reading it, he said, * If 
it is any consolation to you to know it, you are not 
the first who has come to ask for the " Memoirs of 
La Fere " ; I have already seen at least thirty people 
who came solely for that purpose, and no doubt 
they hate you for sending them on a fool's errand.' 

" As I was in search of material for a novel, and 
as there are people who declare novels are to be 
found ready-made, I asked for the catalogue. 

" Of course, I did not discover anything." 

Every one knows of Dumas' great fame as a 
gastronome and epicure; some recall, also, that he 
himself was a cuisinier of no mean abilities. How 



Dumas' %itcvav^ Cateet 63 

far his capacities went in this direction, and how 
wide was his knowledge of the subject, can only be 
gleaned by a careful reading of his great " Diction- 
naire de Cuisine." Still further into the subject 
he may be supposed to have gone from the fact that 
he also published an inquiry, or an open letter, 
addressed to the gourmands of all countries, on the 
subject of mustard. 

It is an interesting subject, to be sure, but a tri- 
fling one for one of the world's greatest writers to 
spend his time upon ; say you, dear reader ? Well ! 
perhaps ! But it is a most fascinating contribution to 
the literature of epicurism, and quite worth looking 
up and into. The history of the subtle spice is 
traced down through Biblical and Roman times to 
our own day, chronologically, etymologically, bo- 
tanically, and practically. It will be, and doubtless 
has been, useful to other compilers of essays on good 
cheer. 

Whatever may be the subtle abilities which make 
the true romancer, or rather those which make his 
romances things of life and blood, they were pos- 
sessed by Alexandre Dumas. 

Perhaps it is the more easy to construct a ro- 
mantic play than it is to erect, from matter-of-fact 
components, a really engrossing romantic novel. 
Dumas' abilities seem to fit in with both varieties 



64 Dumas' parts 

alike, and if he did build to order, the result was 
in most cases no less successful than if evolved 
laboriously. 

It is a curious fact that many serial contributions 
— if we are to believe the literary gossip of the 
time — are only produced as the printer is waiting 
for copy. The formula is manifestly not a good 
one upon which to build, but it has been done, and 
successfully, by more writers than one, and with 
scarce a gap unbridged. 

Dickens did it, — if it is allowable to mention 
him here, — and Dumas himself did it, — many 
times, — and with a wonderful and, one may say, 
inspired facility, but then his facility, none the less 
than his vitality, made possible much that was not 
granted to the laborious Zola. 

Dumas was untiring to the very last. His was a 
case of being literally worked out — not worked to 
death, which is quite a different thing. 

It has been said by Dumas His that in the latter 
years of the elder's life he would sit for length upon 
length of time, pen in hand, and not a word would 
flow therefrom, ere the ink had dried. 

An interesting- article on Dumas' last days ap- 
peared in La Revue in 1903. It dealt with the sad- 
ness and disappointments of Dumas' later days, in 
spite of which the impression conveyed of the great 



Juntas' Xlterarp Career 65 

novelist's personality is very vivid, and he emerges 
from it much as his books would lead one to expect 
— a hearty, vigorous creature, surcharged with 
vitality, with desire to live and let live, a man 
possessed of almost equally prominent faults and 
virtues, and generous to a fault. 

Money he had never been able to keep. He had 
said himself, at a time when he was earning a for- 
tune, '' I can keep everything but money. Money 
unfortunately always slips through my fingers." 
The close of his life was a horrible struggle to make 
ends meet. When matters came to a crisis Dumas 
would pawn some of the valuable objefs d'art he had 
collected in the opulent past, or ask his son for 
assistance. But, though the sum asked was always 
given, there were probably few things which the 
old man would not have preferred to this appeal 
to the younger author. 

As he grew old, Dumas pere became almost 
timid in his attitude toward the son, whose disap- 
proval had frequently found expression in advice 
and warning. But Dumas could not settle down, 
and he could not become careful. Neither of these 
things was in his nature, and there was conse- 
quently always some little undercurrent of friction 
between them. To the end of his days his money 
was anybody's who liked to come and ask for it, 



66 2)umas' Paris 

and nothing but the final clouding of his intellectual 
capacity could reduce his optimism. Then, it is 
true, he fell into a state of sustained depression. 
The idea that his reputation would not last haunted 
him. 

In 1870, when Dumas was already very ill, his 
son, anxious that he should not be in Paris during 
its investment by the Germans, took him to a house 
he had at Puys, near Dieppe. Here the great man 
rapidly sank, and, except at meal-times, passed his 
time in a state of heavy sleep, until a sudden attack 
of apoplexy finally seized him. He never rallied 
after it, and died upon the day the Prussian soldiers 
took possession of Dieppe. 

Many stories are rife of Dumas the prodigal. 
Some doubtless are true, many are not. Those 
which he fathers himself, we might well accept as 
being true. Surely he himself should know. 

The following incident which happened in the 
last days of his life certainly has the ring of truth 
about it. 

When in his last illness he left Paris for his 
son's country house near Dieppe, he had but twenty 
francs, the total fortune of the man who had earned 
millions. 

On arriving at Puys, Dumas placed the coin on 



2)umas' Xtterari^ Career 67 

his bedroom chimneypiece, and there it remained all 
through his illness. 

One day he was seated in his chair near the 
window, chatting with his son, when his eye fell 
on the gold piece. 

A recollection of the past crossed his mind. 

" Fifty years ago, when I went to Paris," he 
said, " I had a louis. Why have people accused 
me of prodigality? I have always kept that louis. 
See — there it is." 

And he showed his son the coin, smiling feebly 
as he did so. 



CHAPTER IV. 



DUMAS CONTEMPORARIES 



y#MONG those of the world's great names 
yi in literature contemporary with Dumas, 
but who knew Paris ere he first descended 
upon it to try his fortune in its arena of letters, 
were Lamartine, who already, in 1820, had charmed 
his public with his " Meditations ; " Hugo, who 
could claim but twenty years himself, but who had 
already sung his " Odes et Ballades," and Chateau- 
briand. 

Soulie and De Vigny won their fame with poems 
and plays in the early twenties, De Musset and 
Chenier followed before a decade had passed, and 
Gautier was still serving his apprenticeship. 

It was the proud Goethe who said of these young 
men of the twenties, " They all come from Chateau- 
briand." Beranger, too, " the little man," even 
though he was drawing on toward the prime of 

life, was also singing melodiously: it was his chan- 

68 



Dumas' (Tontemporartes 69 

sons, it is said, that upset the Bourbon throne and 
made way for the "citizen-king." Nodier, of 
fanciful and fantastic rhyme, was already at work, 
and Merimee had not yet taken up the administra- 
tive duties of overseeing the preserving process 
which at his instigation was, at the hands of a 
paternal government, being applied to the historical 
architectural monuments throughout France; a 
glory which it is to be feared has never been wholly 
granted to Merimee, as was his due. 

Guizot, the bete noire of the later Louis-Philippe, 
was actively writing from 1825 to 1830, and his 
antagonist, Thiers, was at the same period pro- 
ducing what Carlyle called the " voluminous and 
untrustworthy labours of a brisk little man in his 
way ; " which recalls to mind the fact that Carlylean 
rant — like most of his prose — is a well-nigh in- 
sufferable thing. 

At this time Mignet, the historian, was hard at 
work, and St. Beauve had just deserted materia 
medica for literature. Michelet's juvenile histories 
were a production of the time, while poor, un- 
honoured, and then unsung, Balzac was grinding 
out his pittance — in after years to grow into a 
monumental literary legacy — in a garret. 

Eugene Sue had not yet taken to literary path- 
ways, and was scouring the seas as a naval surgeon. 



70 Dumas' Paris 

The drama was prolific in names which we 
have since known as masters, Scribe, Halevy, and 
others. 

George Sand, too, was just beginning that grand 
Hterary Hfe which opened with " Indiana " in 1832, 
and lasted until 1876. She, like so many of the 
great, whose name and fame, like Dumas' own, has 
been perpetuated by a monument in stone, the 
statue which was unveiled in the little town of her 
birth on the Indre, La Chatre, in 1903. 

Like Dumas, too, hers was a cyclopean industry, 
and so it followed that in the present twentieth 
century (in the year 1904), another and a more 
glorious memorial to France's greatest woman 
writer was unveiled in the Garden of the Luxem- 
bourg. 

Among the women famous in the monde of Paris 
at the time of Dumas' arrival were Mesdames 
Desbordes-Valmore, Amable Tastu, and Delphine 
Gay. 

" For more than half a century this brilliant 
group of men and women sustained the world of 
ideas and poetry," said Dumas, in his " Memoires," 
" and I, too," he continued, " have reached the 
same plane . . . unaided by intrigue or coterie, and 
using none other than my own work as the stepping- 
stone in my pathway." 



Dumas' (Tontemporartes 71 

Dumas cannot be said to have been niggardly 
with his praise of the work of others. He said of 
a sonnet of Arnault's — "La Feuille " — that it 
was a masterpiece which an Andre Chenier, a 
Lamartine, or a Hugo might have envied, and that 
for himself, not knowing what his " literary 
brothers " might have done, he would have given 
for it " any one of his dramas." 

It was into the office of Arnault, who was chief 
of a department in the Universite, that Beranger 
took up his labours as a copying-clerk, — as did 
Dumas in later years, — and it was while here that 
Beranger produced his first ballad, the " Roi 
d'Yvetot." 

In 185 1 Millet was at his height, if one con- 
siders what he had already achieved by his " great 
agrarian poems," as they have been called. Gautier 
called them " Georgics in paint," and such they 
undoubtedly were. Millet would hardly be called 
a Parisian; he was not of the life of the city, but 
rather of that of the countryside, by his having 
settled down at Barbizon in 1849, ^^^^ practically 
never left it except to go to Paris on business. 

His life has been referred to as one of " sublime 
monotony," but it was hardly that. It was a life 
devoted to the telling of a splendid story, that of 



72 Bumas* Paris 

the land as contrasted with that of the paved city- 
streets. 

Corot was a real Parisian, and it was only in his 
early life in the provinces that he felt the bitterness 
of life and longed for the flagstones of the quais, 
for the Tuileries, the Seine, and his beloved Rue de 
Bac, where he was born on loth Thermidor, 
Year IV. (July 28, 1796). Corot early took to 
painting the scenes of the metropolis, as we learn 
from his biography, notably at the point along the 
river bank where the London steamer moors to-day. 
But these have disappeared; few or none of his 
juvenile efforts have come down to us. 

Corot returned to Paris, after many years spent 
in Rome, during the reign of Louis-Philippe, when 
affairs were beginning to stir themselves in liter- 
ature and art. In 1839 ^is " Site d'ltalie " and a 
" Soir " were shown at the annual Salon, — though, 
of course, he had already been an exhibitor there, 
• — and inspired a sonnet of Theophile Gautier, 
which concludes: 

« Corot, ton nom modest, ^crit dans un coin noir." 

Corot's pictures were unfortunately hung in the 
darkest corners — for fifteen years. As he himself 
has said, it was as if he were in the catacombs. 



2)umas' Contemporartes 73 

In 1855 Corot figured as one of the thirty- four 
judges appointed by Napoleon III. to make the 
awards for paintings exhibited in the world's first 
Universal Eixhibition. It is not remarked that 
Corot had any acquaintance or friendships with 
Dumas or with Victor Hugo, of whom he remarked, 
" This Victor Hugo seems to be pretty famous in 
literature." He knew little of his contemporaries, 
and the hurly-burly knew less of him. He was 
devoted, however, to the genius of his superiors — 
as he doubtless thought them. Of Delacroix he said 
one day, "He is an eagle, and I am only a lark 
singing little songs in gray clouds." 

A literary event of prime importance during the 
latter years of Dumas' life in Paris, when his own 
purse was growing thin, was the publication of the 
" Histoire de Jules Cesar," written by Napo- 
leon III. 

Nobody ever seems to have taken the second 
emperor seriously in any of his finer expressions of 
sentiment, and, as may be supposed, the publication 
of this immortal literary effort was the occasion 
of much sarcasm, banter, violent philippic, and 
sardonic criticism. 

Possibly the world was not waiting for this work, 
but royalty, no less than other great men, have 
their hobbies and their fads; Nero fiddled, and the 



74 S)umas' iparis 

first Napoleon read novels and threw them forth- 
with out of the carriage window, so it was quite 
permissible that Napoleon III. should have perpet- 
uated this life history of an emperor whom he may 
justly and truly have admired — perhaps envied, in 
a sort of impossible way. 

Already Louis Napoleon's collection of writings 
was rather voluminous, so this came as no great 
surprise, and his literary reputation was really 
greater than that which had come to him since 
fate made him the master of one of the foremost 
nations of Europe. 

From his critics we learn that " he lacked the 
grace of a popular author; that he was quite in- 
capable of interesting the reader by a charm of 
manner; and that his ^^3;/^ was meagre, harsh, and 
grating, but epigrammatic." No Frenchman could 
possibly be otherwise. 

Dumas relates, again, the story of Sir Walter 
Scott's visit to Paris, seeking documents which 
should bear upon the reign of Napoleon. Dining 
with friends one evening, he was invited the next 
day to dine with Barras. But Scott shook his head. 
" I cannot dine with that man," he replied. " I 
shall write evil of him, and people in Scotland 
would say that I have flung the dishes from his 
own table at his head." 



Dumas' Contemporaries 75 

It is not recorded that Dumas' knowledge of 
swordsmanship was based on practical experience, 
but certainly no more scientific sword-play of passe 
and touche has been put into words than that won- 
derful attack and counter-attack in the opening 
pages of " Les Trois Mousquetaires." 

Of the duel d'honneur there is less to be said, 
though Dumas more than once sought to reconcile 
estranged and impetuous spirits who would have 
run each other through, either by leaden bullet or the 
sword. A notable instance of this was in the mem- 
orable affaire between Louis Blanc of UHomme- 
Libre and Dujarrier-Beauvallon of La Presse, The 
latter told Dumas that he had no alternative but 
to fight, though he went like a lamb to the slaughter, 
and had no knowledge of the code nor any skill 
with weapons. 

Dumas pere was implored by the younger Dumas 
— both of whom took Dujarrier's interests much 
to heart — to go arid see Grisier and claim his 
intervention. " I cannot do it," said the elder ; 
" the first and foremost thing to do is to safeguard 
his reputation, which is the more precious because 
it is his first duel." The Grisier referred to was the 
great master of fence of the time who was immor- 
talized by Dumas in his " Maitre d'Armes." 

Dumas himself is acknowledged, however, on one 



76 Dumas' parts 

occasion, at least, to have acted as second — co- 
jointly with General Fleury — in an affaire which, 
happily, never came off. 

It was this Blanc-Dujarrier duel which brought 
into further prominent notice that most remarkable 
and quasi-wonderful woman, Lola Montez; that 
daughter of a Spaniard and a Creole, a native of 
Limerick, pupil of a boarding-school at Bath, and 
one-time resident of Seville ; to which may be added, 
on the account of Lord Malmesbury, " The woman 
who In Munich set fire to the magazine of revolution 
which was ready to burst forth all over Europe." 

She herself said that she had also lived in Cal- 
cutta as the wife of an officer in the employ of 
the East India Company; had at one time been 
reduced to singing in the streets at Brussels; had 
danced at the Italian Opera in London, — " not 
much, but as well as half the ugly wooden women 
who were there," — and had failed as a dancer in 
Warsaw. 

" This illiterate schemer," says Vandam, " who 
probably knew nothing of geography or history, had 
pretty well the Almanach de Gotha by heart." 
" Why did I not come earlier to Paris ? " she once 
said. " What was the good ? There was a king 
there bourgeois to his finger-nails, tight-fisted be- 



Dumas' Contemporaries 77 

sides, and notoriously the most moral and the best 
father in all the world." 

This woman, it seems, was a beneficiary in the 
testament of Dujarrier, who died as a result of his 
duel, to the extent of eighteen shares in the Theatre 
du Palais Royal, ^nd in the trial which followed 
at Rouen, at which were present all shades and 
degrees of literary and professional people, Dumas, 
Gustave Flaubert, and others, she insisted upon 
appearing as a witness, for no reason whatever, 
apparently, than that of further notoriety. " Six 
months from this time," as one learns from Van- 
dam, " her name was almost forgotten by all of us 
except Alexandre Dumas, who once and again al- 
luded to her." " Though far from superstitious, 
Dumas, who had been as much smitten with her as 
most of her admirers, avowed that he was glad 
that she had disappeared. * She has the evil eye,' 
said he, ' and is sure to bring bad luck to any one 
who closely links his destiny with hers.' " 

There is no question but that Dumas was right, 
for she afterward — to mention but two instances 
of her remarkably active career — brought disaster 
" most unkind " upon Louis I. of Bavaria ; com- 
mitted bigamy with an English officer who was 
drowned at Lisbon; and, whether in the guise of 



7^ Bumas' Paris 

lovers or husbands, all, truly, who became connected 
with her met with almost immediate disaster. 

The mere mention of Lx)la Montez brings to mind 
another woman of the same category, though differ- 
ent in character, Alphonsine Plessis, more popularly 
known as La Dame aux Camelias. She died in 
1847, 3-nd her name was not Marie or Marguerite 
Duplessis, but as above written. 

Dumas His in his play did not idealize Alphonsine 
Plessis' character; indeed, Dumas pere said that he 
did not even enlarge or exaggerate any incident — 
all of which was common property in the demi- 
monde — " save that he ascribed her death tO' any 
cause but the right one." " I know he made use 
of it," said the father, " but he showed the malady 
aggravated by Duval's desertion." 

We learn that the elder Dumas " wept like a 
baby " over the reading of his son's play. But 
his tears did not drown his critical faculty. " At 
the beginning of the third act," said Dumas pere, 
" I was wondering how Alexandre would get his 
Marguerite back to town, . . . but the way Alex- 
andre got out of the difficulty proves that he is 
my son, every inch of him, and at the very outset 
of his career he is a better dramatist than I am 
ever likely to be." 

" Alphonsine Plessis was decidedly a real per- 



Dumas' Contemporaries 79 

sonage, but not an ordinary one in her walk of 
life," said Doctor Veron. " A woman of her re- 
finement might not have been impossible in a former 
day, because the grisette — and subsequently the 
femme entretenue — was not then even surmised. 
She interests me much; she is the best dressed 
woman in Paris, she neither conceals nor hides her 
vices, and she does not continually hint about 
money; in short, she is wonderful." 

" La Dame aux Camelias " appeared within eight- 
een months of the actual death of the heroine, and 
went into every one's hands, interest being whetted 
meanwhile by the recent event, and yet more by much 
gossip — scandal if you will — which universally 
appeared in the Paris press. Her pedigree was 
evolved and diagnosed by Count G. de Contades 
in a French bibliographical journal, Le Livre, which 
showed that she was descended from a " guenxiche- 
tonne" (slattern) of Longe, in the canton of 
Brionze, near Alencon; a predilection which the 
elder Dumas himself had previously put forth when 
he stated that, " I am certain that one might find 
taint either on the father's side, or on the mother's, 
probably on the former's, but more probably still 
on both." 

The following eulogy, extracted from a letter 
written to Dumas His by Victor Hugo upon the 



So Juntas' Paris 

occasion of the inhumation of the ashes of Alex- 
andre Dumas at Villers-Cotterets, whither they were 
removed from Puits, shows plainly the esteem in 
which his literary abilities were held by the more 
sober-minded of his compeers : 

" MoN CHER Confrere : — I learn from the 
papers of the funeral of Alexandre Dumas at Vil- 
lers-Cotterets. ... It is with regret that I am un- 
able to attend. . . . But I am with you in my heart. 
. . . What I would say, let me write. . . . No 
popularity of the past century has equalled that of 
Alexandre Dumas. His successes were more than 
successes: they were triumphs. . . . The name of 
Alexandre Dumas is more than ' Frangais, il est 
Europeen ; ' and it is more than European, it is 
universal. His theatre has been given publicity in 
all lands, and his romances have been translated 
into all tongues. Alexandre Dumas was one of 
those men we can call the sowers of civilization. . . . 
Alexandre Dumas is seducing, fascinating, interest- 
ing, amusing, and informing. . . . All the emo- 
tions, the most pathetic, all the irony, all the comedy, 
all the analysis of romance, and all the intuition 
of history are found in the supreme works con- 
structed by this great and vigorous architect. 

"... His spirit was capable of all the miracles 



Dumas' Contemporaries 8i 

he performed; this he bequeathed and this sur- 
vives. . . . Your renown but continues his glory. 

** . . . Your father and I were young together. 
. . . He was a grand and good friend. ... I had 
not seen him since 1857. . . . As I entered Paris 
Alexandre Dumas was leaving. I did not have 
even a parting shake of the hand. 

" The visit which he made me in my exile I will 
some day return to his tomb. 

'' Cher confrere J His de mon awii, je vous em- 
hrasse. Victor Hugo." 

Of Dumas, Charles Reade said : " He has never 
been properly appreciated; he is the prince of 
dramatists, the king of romancists, and the emperor 
of good fellows." 

Dumas His he thought a " vinegar-blooded icon- 
oclast — shrewd, clever, audacious, introspective, 
and mathematically logical." 

The Cimetiere du Pere La Chaise has a contem- 
porary interest with the names of many who were 
contemporaries of Dumas in the life and letters 
of his day. 

Of course, sentimental interest first attaches itself 
to the Gothic canopy — built from the fragments 
of the convent of Paraclet — which enshrines the 



82 2)umas' Paris 

remains of Abelard and Helo'ise (1142 — 64), and 
this perhaps is as it should be, but for those who 
are conversant with the hfe of Paris of Dumas' 
day, this most *' famous resting-place " has far 
more interest because of its shelter given to so many 
of Dumas' contemporaries and friends. 

Scribe, who was buried here 186 1 ; Michelet, d. 
1874; Delphine Cambaceres, 1867; Lacham- 
beaudie, 1872; SouHe, 1847; Balzac, 1850; Ch. 
Nodier, 1844; C. Delavigne, 1843; Delacroix, the 
painter, 1865; Talma, the tragedian, 1826; Boiel- 
dieu, the composer, 1834; Chopin, 1849; Herold, 
1833; General Foy, 1825; David d' Angers, 1856; 
Hugo, 1828 (the father of Victor Hugo) ; David, 
the painter, 1825; Alfred de Musset, 185^; Ros- 
sini, 1868. 




TOMB OF ABELARD AND HELOISE 



CHAPTER V. 



THE PARIS OF DUMAS 



y^UMAS' real descent upon the Paris of 
I B letters and art was in 1823, when he had 
given up his situation in the notary's 
office at Crepy, and after the eventful holiday jour- 
ney of a few weeks before. His own account of 
this, his fourth entrance into the city, states that 
he was " landed from the coach at five a. m. in the 
Rue Bouloi, No. 9. It was Sunday morning, and 
Bourbon Paris was very gloomy on a Sunday." 

Within a short time of his arrival the young 
romancer was making calls, of a nature which he 
hoped would provide him some sort of employ- 
ment until he should make his way in letters, upon 
many bearers of famous Bourbon names who lived 
in the Faubourgs St. Germain and St. Honore — 
all friends and compatriots of his father. 

He had brought with him letters formerly writ- 
ten to his father, and hoped to use them as a means 

83 



S4 Dumas' Paris 

of introduction. He approached Marshal Jourdain, 
General Sebastiani, the Due de Bellune, and others, 
but it was not until he presented himself to General 
Foy, at 64 Rue du Mont Blanc, — the deputy for 
his department, — that anything to his benefit re- 
sulted. 

Finally, through the kindly aid of General Foy, 
Dumas — son of a republican general though he 
was — found himself seated upon a clerk's stool, 
quill in hand, writing out dictation at the secretary's 
bureau of the Due d'Orleans. 

" I then set about to look for lodgings," said 
Dumas, " and, after going up and down many stair- 
cases, I came to a halt in a little room on a fourth 
story, which belonged to that immense pile known 
as the ' Pate des Italiens.' The room looked out on 
the courtyard, and I was to have it for one hundred 
and twenty francs per annum." 

From that time on Dumas may be said to have 
known Paris intimately — its life, its letters, its 
hotels and restaurants, its theatres, its salons, and 
its boulevards. 

So well did he know it that he became a part and 
parcel of it. 

His literary affairs and relations are dealt with 
elsewhere, but the various aspects of the social and 
economic life of Paris at the time Dumas knew 




General Foy's Residence 



Ubc iPartB of Bumas 85 

its very pulse-beats must be gleaned from various 
contemporary sources. 

The real Paris which Dumas knew — the Paris 
of the Second Empire — exists no more. The order 
of things changeth in all but the conduct of the 
stars, and Paris, more than any other centre of 
activity, scintillates and fluctuates like the changings 
of the money-markets. 

The life that Dumas lived, so far as it has no 
bearing on his literary labours or the evolving of his 
characters, is quite another affair from that of his 
yearly round of work. 

He knew intimately all the gay world of Paris, 
and fresh echoes of the part he played therein are 
being continually presented to us. 

He knew, also, quite as intimately, certain politi- 
cal and social movements which took place around 
about him, in which he himself had no part. 

It was in the fifties of the nineteenth century that 
Paris first became what one might call a coherent 
mass. This was before the days of the application 
of the adjective " Greater " to the areas of munic- 
ipalities. Since then we have had, of course, a 
" Greater Paris " as we have a " Greater London " 
and a " Greater New York," but at the commence- 
ment of the Second Empire (1852) there sprang 
into being, — " jumped at one's eyes," as the French 



86 2)umas' pads 

say, — when viewed from the heights of the towers 
of Notre Dame, an immense panorama, which 
showed the results of a prodigious development, 
radiating far into the distance, from the common 
centre of the lie de la Cite and the still more ancient 
Lutece. 

Up to the construction of the present fortifica- 
tions, — under Louis-Philippe, — Paris had been 
surrounded, at its outer confines, by a simple octroi 
barrier of about twenty-five kilometres in circum- 
ference, and pierced by fifty-four entrances. Since 
i860 this wall has been raised and the limits of what 
might be called Paris proper have been extended up 
to the, fortified lines. 

This fortification wall was thirty-four kilome- 
tres in length ; was strengthened by ninety- four bas- 
tions, and surrounded and supported by thirteen de- 
tached forts. Sixty-five openings gave access to the 
inner city, by which the roadways, waterways, and 
railways entered. These were further distinguished 
by classification as follows : portes — of which there 
were fifty; potemes — of which there were five; and 
passages — of which there were ten. Nine railways 
entered the city, and the ^*' Ceinture/^ or girdle rail- 
way, which was to bind the various gares, was 
already conceived. 

At this time, too, the Quais received marked at- 



Ube Paris ot H)umas 87 

tention and development; trees were planted along 
the streets which bordered upon them, and a vast 
system of sewerage was planned which became — 
and endures until to-day — one of the sights of 
Paris, for those who take pleasure in such unsavoury 
amusements. 

Lighting by gas was greatly improved, and street- 
lamps were largely multiplied, with the result that 
Paris became known for the first time as '' La Ville 
Lnmiere." 

A score or more of villages, or hourgs, before 
i860, were between the limits of these two bar- 
riers, but were at that time united by the loi d' an- 
nexion, and so " Greater Paris " came into being. 

The principle hourgs which lost their identity, 
which, at the same time is, in a way, yet preserved, 
were Auteuil, Passy, les Ternes, Batignolles, Mont- 
martre, la Chapelle, la Villette, Belleville, Menilmon- 
tant, Charenton, and Bercy ; and thus the population 
of Paris grew, as in the twinkling of an eye, from 
twelve hundred thousand to sixteen hundred thou- 
sand; and its superficial area from thirty-four 
hundred hectares to more than eight thousand — a 
hectare being about the equivalent of two and a 
half acres. 

During the period of the " Restoration," which 
extended from the end of the reign of the great 



88 Bumas' Paris 

Napoleon to the coming of Louis-Philippe (1814 — 
30), Paris may be said to have been in, or at least 
was at the beginning of, its golden age of pros- 
perity. 

In a way the era was somewhat inglorious, but 
in spite of liberal and commonplace opinion, there 
was made an earnest effort tO' again secure the 
pride of place for French letters and arts; and it 
was then that the romantic school, with Dumas at 
its very head, attained its first importance. 

It was not, however, until Louis-Philippe came 
into power that civic improvements made any nota- 
ble progress, though the Pont des Invalides had 
been built, and gas-lamps, omnibuses, and side- 
walks, had been introduced just previously. 

Under Louis-Philippe were completed the figlise 
de la Madeleine and the Arc de Triomphe d'Etoile. 
The Obelisk, — a gift from Mohammed Ali, Vice- 
roy of Egypt, to Louis-Philippe, — the Colonne de 
Juillet, and the Ponts Louis-Philippe and du Car- 
rousel were built, as well as the modern fortifica- 
tions of Paris, with their detached forts of Mont 
Valerien, Ivry, Charenton, Nogent, etc. 

There existed also the encircling boulevards just 
within the fortifications, and yet another parallel 
series on the north, beginning at the Madeleine and 
extending to the Colonne de Juillet. 



Ubc pari0 of Dumas 89 

It was not, however, until the Second RepubHc 
and the Second Empire of Napoleon III. that a 
hitherto unparallelled transformation was under- 
taken, and there sprung into existence still more 
broad boulevards and spacious squares, and many 
palatial civic and private establishments, the Bourse, 
the New Opera, and several theatres, the Ceinture 
Railway, and the Bois de Boulogne and the Bois de 
Vincennes. 

By this time Dumas' activities were so great, or 
at least the product thereof was so great, that even 
his intimate knowledge of French life of a more 
heroic day could not furnish him all the material 
which he desired. 

It was then that he produced those essentially 
modern stories of life in Paris of that day, which, 
slight though they are as compared with the longer 
romances, are best represented by the " Corsican 
Brothers," '' Captain Pamphile," and " Gabriel 
Lambert." 

Among the buildings at this time pulled down, on 
the Place du Carrousel, preparatory to the termina- 
tion of the Louvre, was the Hotel Longueville, the 
residence of the beautiful duchess of that name, 
celebrated for her support of the Fronde and her 
gallantries, as much as for her beauty. Dumas 



90 H)uma0' Paris 

would have revelled in the following incident as 
the basis of a tale. In the arched roof of one of 
the cellars of the duchess' hotel two skeletons of 
a very large size and in a perfect state of preserva- 
tion were discovered, which have since been the 
object of many discussions on the part of the anti- 
quarians, but adhuc sub judice lis est. Another dis- 
covery was made close by the skeletons, which is 
more interesting from a literary point of view; 
namely, that of a box, in carved steel, embellished 
with gilded brass knobs, and containing several 
papers. Among them was an amatory epistle in 
verse, from the Prince de Marsillac to the fair 
duchess. The other papers were letters relating to 
the state of affairs at that time; some from the 
hand of the celebrated Turenne, with memorandums, 
and of the Prince de Conti, " of great value to 
autograph collectors," said the newspaper accounts 
of the time, but assuredly of still more value to 
historians, or even novelists. 

At this time Paris was peopled with many hun- 
dreds — perhaps thousands — of mauvais sujets, 
and frequent robberies and nightly outrages were 
more numerous than ever. Tlie government at last 
hit on the plan of sending to the hagnes of Toulon 
and Brest for several of the turnkeys and gaolers 
of those great convict depots, to whom the features 



Ube Paris ot Dumas 91 

of all their former prisoners were perfectly known. 
These functionaries, accompanied by a policeman in 
plain clothes, perambulated every part of Paris by 
day, and by night frequented all the theatres, from 
the Grand Opera downward, the low cafes and wine- 
shops. It appears that more than four hundred of 
these desperadoes were recognized and retransf erred 
to their old quarters at Toulon. Some of these 
worthies had been carrying on schemes of swin- 
dling on a colossal scale, and more than one is de- 
scribed as having entered into large speculations on 
the Bourse. Perhaps it was from some such cir- 
cumstance as this that Dumas evolved that wonder- 
ful narrative of the life of a forger, " Gabriel Lam- 
bert." One of the most noted in the craft was 
known by the soubriquet of Pierre Mandrin, the 
name of that celebre being conferred on account 
of his superiority and skill in assuming disguises. 
When arrested he was figuring as a Polish count, 
and covered with expensive rings and jewelry. 
The career of this ruffian is interesting. In 1839, 
while undergoing an imprisonment of two years 
for robbery, he attempted to make his escape by 
murdering the gaoler, but failed, however, and was 
sent to the galleys at Toulon for twenty years. In 
1848 he did escape from Brest, and, notwithstand- 
ing the greatest exertions on the part of the police, 



92 Dumas' parts 

he succeeded in crossing the whole of France and 
gaining Belgium, where he remained for some time. 
Owing to the persecutions of the Belgian police, 
he subsequently returned to France. He was so 
unfortunate as to be captured in the very act of 
breaking into a house at Besangon, but his prodig- 
ious activity enabled him once again to escape while 
on his way to prison, and he came to Paris. Being 
possessed of some money, he resolved to abandon 
his evil courses, and set up a greengrocer's shop in 
the Rue Rambuteau, which went on thrivingly for 
some time. But such an inactive life was insup- 
portable to him, and he soon resumed his former 
exciting pursuits. Several robberies committed 
with consummate skill soon informed the police of 
the presence in Paris of some great master of the 
art of Mercury. The most experienced officers were 
accordingly sent out, but they made no capture until 
one of the Toulon gaolers fancied he recollected the 
convict under the features of an elegantly attired 
lion on the Boulevard des Italiens. A few hours 
afterward the luckless echappe was safely lodged 
at the Conciergerie. At his lodgings, besides the 
usual housebreaking implements, a complete assort- 
ment of costumes of every kind was discovered — 
from that of the dandy of the first water to the 
blouse of the artisan. 



Ube iParlB of Dumas 93 

There is something more than a morbid interest 
which attaches itself to the former homes and 
haunts of a great author or artist. The emotion 
is something akin to sentiment, to be sure, but it 
is pardonable; far more so than the contemplation 
of many more popular and notorious places. 

He who would follow the footsteps of Alexandre 
Dumas about Paris must either be fleet of foot, or 
one who can sustain a long march. At any rate, 
the progress will take a considerable time. 

It is impossible to say in how many places he 
lived, though one gathers from the " Memoires," 
and from contemporary information, that they num- 
bered many score, and the uncharitable have further 
said that he found it more economical to move than 
to pay his rents. Reprehensible as this practice may 
be, Dumas was no single exponent of it — among 
artists and authors; and above all in his case, as 
we know, it resulted from imprudence and ofttimes 
misplaced confidence and generosity. 

One of Dumas' early homes in Paris, jocularly 
called by him " La Pate dTtalie," was situated in 
that famous centre of unconventionality, the Boule- 
vard des Italiens, a typical tree-shaded and cafe- 
lined boulevard. 

Its name was obviously acquired from its re- 
semblance to, or suggestion of being constructed of, 



94 Dumas' parts 

that mastic which is known in Germany as noodles, 
in Italy as macaroni, and in English-speaking 
countries as dough. 

To-day the structure, as it then was, exists no 
more, though the present edifice at the corner of 
the Rue Louis le Grand, opposite the vaudeville 
theatre, has been assuredly stated as in no wise 
differing in general appearance from its prototype, 
and, as it is after the same ginger-cake style of 
architecture, it will serve its purpose. 

Albert Vandam, in " An Englishman in Paris," 
that remarkable book of reminiscence whose author- 
ship was so much in doubt when the work was first 
published, devoted a whole chapter to the intimacies 
of Dumas pere; indeed, nearly every feature and 
character of prominence in the great world of Paris 
— at the time of which he writes — strides through 
the pages of this remarkably illuminating book, in 
a manner which is unequalled by any conventional 
volume of " Reminiscence," " Observations," or 
" Memoirs " yet written In the English language, 
dealing with the life of Paris — or, for that matter, 
of any other capital. 

His account, also, of a " literary cafe " of the 
Paris of the forties could only have been written 
by one who knew the life intimately, and, so far 
as Dumas' acquaintances and contemporaries are 



tTbe pads ot 5)uma6 95 

concerned, Vandam's book throws many additional 
side-lights on an aspect which of itself lies in no 
perceptible shadow. 

Even in those days the " boulevards " — the pop- 
ular resort of the men of letters, artists, and musical 
folk — meant, as it does to-day, a somewhat re- 
stricted area in the immediate neighbourhood of the 
present Opera. At the corner of the Rue Lafitte was 
a tobacconist's shop, whose genius was a " splendid 
creature," of whom Alfred de Musset became so 
enamoured that his friends feared for an " impru- 
dence on his part." The various elements of so- 
ciety and cliques had their favourite resorts and 
rendezvous ; the actors under the trees in the court- 
yard of the Palais Royal ; the ouvrier and his family 
meandered in the Champs Elysees or journeyed 
country ward to Grenelle; while the soldiery mostly 
repaired to La Plaine de St. Denis. 

A sister to Thiers kept a small dining establish- 
ment in the Rue Drouet, and many journalistic and 
political gatherings were held at her tables d'hote. 
When asked whether her delicious pheasants were 
of her illustrious brother's shooting, she shook her 
head, and replied : " No, M. the President of the 
Council has not the honour to supply my estab- 
lishment." 

Bohemia, as Paris best knew it in the fifties, was 



9^ ©urnas' parts 

not that pleasant land which lies between the Mora- 
vian and the Giant Mountains; neither were the 
Bohemians of Paris a Slavonic or Teutonic people 
of a strange, nomad race. 

But the history of the Bohemia of arts and letters 
— which rose to its greatest and most prophetic 
heights in the Paris of the nineteenth century — 
would no doubt prove to be as extensive a work 
as Buckle's " History of Civilization," though the 
recitation of tenets and principles of one would be 
the inevitable reverse of the other. 

The intellectual Bohemian — the artist, or the 
man of letters — has something in his make-up of 
the gipsy's love of the open road; the vagabond 
who instinctively rebels against the established rules 
of society, more because they are established than 
for any other reason. 

Henri Murger is commonly supposed to have 
popularized the " Bohemia " of arts and letters, and 
it is to him we owe perhaps the most graphic pic- 
tures of the life which held forth in the Quartier 
Latin, notorious for centuries for its lack of dis- 
cipline and its defiance of the laws of Church, state, 
and society. It was the very nursery of open 
thought and liberty against absolutism and the con- 
ventional proprieties. 

Gustave Nadaud described this " unknown land " 



XTbe pads ot Bumas 97 

in subtle verse, which loses not a little in attempted 
paraphrase : 

" There stands behind Ste. Genevieve, 
A city where no fancy paves 

With gold the narrow streets, 
But jovial youth, the landlady 
On gloomy stairs, in attic high. 
Gay hope, her tenant, meets. 

'Twas there that the Pays Latin stood, 
'Twas there the world was really good, 
'Twas there that she was gay." 

Of the freedom and the unconventionality of the 
life of the Bohemian world of Paris, where the lives 
of literature and art blended in an almost imper- 
ceptible manner, and the gay indifference of its in- 
habitants, one has but to recall the incident where 
George Sand went to the studio of the painter 
Delacroix to tell him that she had sad news for 
him; that she could never love him; and more 
of the same sort. " Indeed," said Delacroix, who 
kept on painting. — " You are angry with me, are 
you not? You will never forgive me?" — "Cer- 
tainly I will," said the painter, who was still at his 
work, " but I've got a bit of sky here that has 
caused me a deal of trouble and is just coming 
right. Go away, or sit down, and I will be through 



98 Dumas' Paris 

in ten minutes." She went, and of course did not 
return, and so the affaire closed. 

Dumas was hardly of the Pays Latin. He had 
little in common with the Bohemianism of the 
poseur, and the Bohemia of letters and art has been 
largely made up of that sort of thing. 

More particularly Dumas' life was that of the 
boulevards, of the journalist, of tremendous energy 
and output rather than that of the dilettante, and so 
he has but little interest in the south bank of the 
Seine. 

Michelet, while proclaiming loudly for French 
literature and life in Le Peuple, published in 1846, 
desponds somewhat of his country from the fact 
that the overwhelming genius of the popular novel- 
ists of that day — and who shall not say since then, 
as well — have sought their models, too often, in 
dingy cabarets, vile dens of iniquity, or even in the 
prisons themselves. 

He said : " This mania of slandering oneself, of 
exhibiting one's sores, and going, as it were, to look 
for shame, will be mortal in the course of time." 

This may, to a great extent, have been true then 
— and is true to-day — manifestly, but no lover of 
the beautiful ought to condemn a noisome flower 
if but its buds were beautiful, and Paris — the Paris 



Ubc parts ot Bumas 99 

of the Restoration, the Empire, or the RepubHc — is 
none the worse in the eyes of the world because of 
the iniquities which exist in every large centre of 
population, where creeds and intellects of all shades 
and capacities are herded together. 

The French novelist, it is true, can be very sordid 
and banal, but he can be as childlike and bland as 
an unsophisticated young girl — when he has a 
mind to. 

Dumas' novels were not lacking in vigour, valour, 
or action, and he wrote mostly of romantic times; 
so Michelet could not have referred to him. Per- 
haps he had the " Mysteries of Paris " or '* The 
Wandering Jew " in mind, whose author certainly 
did give full measure of sordid detail; but then, 
Sue has been accused before now as not presenting 
a strictly truthful picture. 

So much for the presentation of the tableaux. 
But what about the actual condition of the people 
at the time? 

Michelet's interest in Europe was centred on 
France and confined to le peuple; a term in which he 
ofttimes included the bourgeois, as well he might, 
though he more often regarded those who worked 
with their hands. He repeatedly says : " I myself 
have been one of those workmen, and, although I 



LofC. 



loo 2>ttmas' Paris 

have risen to a different class, I retain the sym- 
pathies of my early conditions." 

Michelet's judgment was quite independent and 
original when he compared the different classes; 
and he had a decided preference for that section 
which cultivates the soil, though by no means did 
he neglect those engaged in trade and manufacture. 
The ouvrier industriel was as much entitled to 
respect as the labourer in the fields, or even the 
small tenant-farmer. He regretted, of course, the 
competition which turned industriaUsme into a cut- 
throat policy. He furthermore had this to say con- 
cerning foreign trade: 

" Alsace and Lyons have conquered art and 
science to achieve beauty for others. . . . The 
' fairy of Paris ' (the modiste) meets, from minute 
to minute, the most unexpected flights of fancy — 
and she or he does to-day, be it recalled. Les 
Strangers come in spite of themselves, and they buy 
of her (France); Us achetent — but what? — pat- 
terns, and then go basely home and copy them, to 
the loss, but to the glory, of France. 

" The Englishman or the German buys a few 
pieces of goods at Paris or Lyons ; just as in letters 
France writes and Belgium sells." 

On the whole, Michelet thought that the popu- 
lation was more successful in tilling the soil than 



XTbe f>art6 ot Bumas loi 

in the marts of the world; and there is this to be 
said, there is no question but what France is a 
self-contained country, though its arts have gone 
forth into the w^orld and influenced all nations. 

Paris is, ever has been, and proudly — perhaps 
rightly — thinks that it ever will be, the artistic 
capital of the world. 

Georges Avenel has recently delivered himself 
of a screed on the " Mechanism of Modem Life," 
wherein are many pertinent, if sometimes trite, ob- 
servations on the more or less automatic processes 
by which we are lodged, fed, and clothed to-day. 

He gives rather a quaint, but unquestionably true, 
reason for the alleged falling-off in the cookery 
of French — of course he means Parisian — res- 
taurants. It is, he says, that modern patrons will 
no longer pay the prices, or, rather, will not spend 
the money that they once did. In the first half 
of the last century — the time of Dumas' activities 
and achievements — he tells us that many Parisian 
lovers of good fare were accustomed to " eat a 
napoleon " daily for their dinner. Nowadays, the 
same persons dine sufficiently at their club for eight 
and a half francs. Perhaps the abatement of 
modern appetites has something to say to this, as 
many folk seldom take more than thirty-five or 
forty minutes over their evening meal. How would 



102 2)ttmas' pads 

this compare with the Gargantuan feasts described 
by Brillat-Savarin and others, or the gastronomic 
exploits of those who ate two turkeys at a sitting? 

Clearly, for comfort, and perhaps luxury, the 
Parisian hotels and restaurants of a former day 
compare agreeably with those of our own time; 
not so much, perhaps, with regard to time and 
labour-saving machinery, which is the equipment 
of the modern batferie de cuisine, but with the re- 
sults achieved by more simple, if more laborious, 
means, and the appointments and surroundings 
amid which they were put upon the board. " The 
proof of the pudding is in the eating " is still appli- 
cable, whether its components be beaten or kneaded 
by clockwork or the cook's boy. 

With the hotels himself, Avenel is less concerned, 
though he reminds us again that Madame de Sevigne 
had often to lie upon straw in the inns she met 
with in travelling, and looked upon a bed in a 
hotel, which would allow one to undress, as a 
luxury. We also learn that the travellers of those 
days had to carry their own knives, the innkeeper 
thinking that he did enough in providing spoons 
and forks. Nor were hotels particularly cheap, a 
small suite of rooms in a hotel of the Rue Riche- 
lieu costing 480 francs a week. It was Napoleon III. 
who, by his creation of the Hotel de Louvre, — 



Ubc parts of Dumas 103 

not the present establishment of the same, name, 
but a much larger structure, — first set the fashion 
of monster hostelries. But what was this com- 
pared with the Elysees Palace, which M. d'Avenel 
chooses as his type of modern luxury, with its 
forty-three cooks, divided into seven brigades, each 
commanded by an officer drawing 3,750 francs a 
year, and its thirty-five hundred pairs of sheets and 
fifty thousand towels, valued together at little short 
of 250,000 francs? Yet, as we well know, even 
these totals pale before some of the hotels of Amer- 
ica, in which M. d'Avenel sees the ne plus ultra of 
organization and saving of labour by the ingenious 
use of machinery, and incidentally a great deal of 
the sentiment of good cheer, which was as much an 
ingredient of former hospitality as was the salt 
and pepper of a repast. 

It is pleasant to read of Alexandre Dumas' culi- 
nary skill, though the repetition of the fact has 
appeared in the works of well-nigh every writer 
who has written of the Paris of the fifties and 
sixties. The dinners at his apartments in the Boule- 
vard Malesherbes were worthy of Soyer or even 
of Brillat-Savarin himself in his best days. In his 
last " Causeries Culinaires," the author of " Monte 
Cristo " tells us that the Bourbon kings were 
specially fond of soup. " The family," he writes, 



104 Dumas' pads 

" from Louis XIV. to the last of their race who 
reigned in France, have been great eaters. The 
Grand Monarque commenced his dinner by two and 
sometimes three different kinds of soup; Louis- 
PhiHppe by four plates of various species of this 
comestible; in the fifth plate his Majesty usually 
mixed portions of the four varieties he had eaten, 
and appeared to enjoy this singular culinary com- 
bination." 

Dumas' reputation as an epicure must have been 
formed early ; he describes in his " Memoires " how, 
on a certain occasion, when he had first become 
installed in Paris, he met a gentleman, Charles 
Nodier, in the stalls of the Porte St. Martin, who 
was reading a well-worn Elzevir entitled " La Pas- 
tissier Frangaise." He says, " I address him. . . . 
* Pardon my impertinence, but are you very fond 
of eggs ? ' ' Why so ? ' ' That book you are read- 
ing, does it not give recipes for cooking eggs in 
sixty different ways ? ' * It does.' * If I could but 
procure a copy.' * But this is an Elzevir,' says my 
neighbour." 

The Parisian is without a rival as an epicure 
and a gastronome, and he associates no stigma with 
the epithet. In Anglo-Saxon lands the reverse is 
the case, though why it is hard to see. 

"Frog-legs" came to be a tidbit in the tables 



XTbe parts of Dumas 105 

d'hote of New York and London many years ago, 
but sympathy has been withheld from the luscious 
escargot. There be those fearless individuals who 
by reason of the entente cordiale have tasted of him 
and found him good, but learning that in the cook- 
shops of Paris they have at last learned to fabricate 
them to equal the native grown article of Bour- 
gogne, have tabooed them once for all, and threaten 
to withdraw their liking for that other succulent 
dainty, the frog. 

At any rate, the schoolboy idea that the Parisian's 
staple fare is snails and frogs is quite exploded, and 
small wonder it is that Anglo-Saxon palates never 
became wholly inured to them. But what about 
England's peculiar dishes? Marrow-bones and 
stewed eels, for instance? 

Dumas' familiarity with the good things of the 
table is nowhere more strongly advanced than in the 
opening chapter of " The Queen's Necklace," 
wherein the author recounts the incident of " the 
nobleman and his mattre d'hote!/' 

The scene was laid in 1784, and runs as follows: 

" The marshal turned toward his mattre d' hotels 
and said, * Sir, I suppose you have prepared me a 
good dinner ? ' 



io6 2)umas' Paris 

" * Certainly, your Grace/ 

" * You have the hst of my guests ? ' 

" * I remember them perfectly.' 

" * There are two sorts of dinners, sir,' said the 
marshal. 

" ' True, your Grace, but — ' 

" * In the first place, at what time do we dine? ' 

" * Your Grace, the citizens dine at two, the bar 
at three, the nobility at four — ' 

*'^And I, sir?' 

" * Your Grace will dine to-day at five.' 

*'^0h, at five!' 

" ' Yes, your Grace, like the king — ' 

" ' And why like the king? ' 

" * Because, on the list of your guests is the name 
of a king.' 

" * Not so, sir, you mistake ; all my guests to-day 
are simple noblemen.' 

" * Your Grace is surely jesting; the Count Haga, 
who is among the guests — ' 

"^Well, sir!' 

'' ' The Count Haga is a king.* (The Count 
Haga was the well-known name of the King of 
Sweden, assumed by him when travelling in France.) 

" ' In any event, your Grace cannot dine before 
five o'clock.' 



XTbe Paris ot Dumas 107 

" ' In heaven's name, do not be obstinate, but let 
us have dinner at four.' 

" ' But at four o'clock, your Grace, what I am 
expecting will not have arrived. Your Grace, I 
wait for a bottle of wine.' 

" * A bottle of wine! Explain yourself, sir; the 
thing begins to interest me.' 

"* Listen, then, your Grace; his Majesty, the 
King of Sweden — I beg pardon, the Count 
Haga, I should have said — drinks nothing but 
Tokay.' 

" * Well, am I so poor as to have no Tokay in 
my cellar? If so, I must dismiss my butler.' 

" * Not so, your Grace; on the contrary, you have 
about sixty bottles.' 

" * Well, do you think Count Haga will drink 
sixty bottles with his dinner ? ' 

" ' No, your Grace ; but when Count Haga first 
visited France when he was only prince royal, he 
dined with the late king, who had received twelve 
bottles of Tokay from the Emperor of Austria. You 
are aware that the Tokay of the finest vintages is 
reserved exclusively for the cellar of the emperor, 
and that kings themselves can only drink it when he 
pleases to send it to them.' 

"'I know it' 

" * Then, your Grace, of these twelve bottles of 



io8 Dumas' parts 

which the prince royal drank, only two remain. One 
is in the cellar of his Majesty Louis XVI. — ' 

"'And the other?' 

" ' Ah, your Grace ! ' said the maitre d' hotel, with 
a triumphant smile, for he felt that, after the long 
battle he had been fighting, the moment of victory 
was at hand, ' the other one was stolen.' 

" ' By whom, then ? ' 

" ' By one of my friends, the late king's butler, 
who was under great obligations to me.' 

" ' Oh ! and so he gave it to you.' 

" * Certainly, your Grace,' said the maUre d' hotel, 
with pride. 

" ' And what did you do with it ? ' 

" ' I placed it carefully in my master's cellar.' 

" * Your master ? And who was your master 
at that time?' 

" ' His Eminence the Cardinal de Rohan.' 

" ' Ah, mon Dieu! at Strasbourg? ' 

" ' At Saverne.' 

" * And you have sent to seek this bottle for me ! ' 
cried the old marshal. 

*^ ' For you, your Grace,' replied the maitre 
d' hotel, in a tone which plainly said, ' ungrateful 
as you are.' 

" The Duke de Richelieu seized the hand of the 



Ubc Paris of Dumas 109 

old servant, and cried, ' I beg pardon ; you are the 
king of maitres d'hotel.' " 

The French noblesse of the eighteenth century 
may have had retainers of the perspicacity and free- 
dom of manners of this servant of the Marechal de 
RicheHeu, but it is hard to picture them in real life 
to-day. At any rate, it bespeaks Dumas' fondness 
of good eating and good drinking that he makes 
so frequent use of references thereto, not only in 
this novel of a later day, but throughout the 
mediaeval romances as well. 

Dumas' knowledge of gastronomy again finds its 
vent in " The Count of Monte Cristo," when the 
unscrupulous Danglars is held in a dungeon pending 
his giving up the five millions of francs which he 
had fraudulently obtained. 

It is not a very high-class repast that is dis- 
cussed, but it shows at least Dumas' familiarity with 
the food of man. 

" At twelve the guard before Danglars' cell was 
replaced by another functionary, and, wishing to 
catch sight of his new guardian, Danglars ap- 
proached the door again. He was an athletic, gi- 
gantic bandit, with large eyes, thick lips, and a flat 
nose; his red hair fell in dishevelled masses like 



no 2>umas' parts 

snakes around his shoulders. * Ah ! ah ! ' cried 
Danglars, ' this fellow is more like an ogre than any- 
thing else; however, I am rather too old and tough 
to be very good eating ! ' We see that Danglars 
was quite collected enough to jest ; at the same time, 
as though to disprove the ogreish propensities, the 
man took some black bread, cheese, and onions from 
his wallet, which he began devouring voraciously. 
^ May I be hanged,' said Danglars, glancing at the 
bandit's dinner through the crevices of the door, 
* may I be hanged if I can understand how people 
can eat such filth ! ' and he withdrew to seat himself 
upon his goatskin, which recalled to him the smell 
of the brandy. ... 

" Four hours passed by, the giant was replaced 
by another bandit. Danglars, who really began to 
experience sundry gnawings at the stomach, rose 
softly, again applied his eye to the crack of the 
door, and recognized the intelligent countenance of 
his guide. It was, indeed, Peppino, who was pre- 
paring to mount guard as comfortably as possible 
by seating himself opposite to the door, and placing 
between his legs an earthen pan, containing chick- 
pease stewed with bacon. Near the pan he also 
placed a pretty little basket of grapes and a bottle 
of Vin d'Orvieto. Peppino was decidedly an epi- 
cure. While witnessing these preparations, Dang- 



Zbc parts ot Dumas m 

lars' mouth watered. ..." I can almost imagine/ 
said he, ' that I were at the Cafe de Paris.' " 

Dumas, hke every strong personaHty, had his 
friends and his enemies. It is doubtful which class 
was in the ascendency as to numbers. When asked, 
on one occasion, when he had been dining at the 
Cafe de Paris, if he were an archaeologist, — he had 
been admiring a cameo portrait of Julius Caesar, — 
he replied, " No, I am absolutely nothing." His 
partisans were many, and they were as devoted as 
his enemies were jealous and uncharitable. Con- 
tinuing, he said, " I admire this portrait in the 
capacity of Caesar's historian." " Indeed," said his 
interlocutor, " it has never been mentioned in the 
world of savants." " Well," said Dumas, " the 
world of savants never mentions me." 

This may be conceit or modesty, accordingly as 
one takes one view or another. Dumas, like most 
people, was not averse to admiration. Far from it. 
He thrived exceedingly on it. But he was, as he 
said, very much alone, and quite felt a nobody at 
times. Of his gastronomic and epicurean abilities 
he was vainly proud. 

The story is told of the sole possession by Dumas 
of a certain recipe for stewed carp. Veron, the 
director of the opera, had instructed his own cook 



tt^ 2)umas' pads 

to serve the celebrated dish ; she, unable to concoct 
it satisfactorily, announced her intention of going 
direct to the novelist to get it from his own lips. 
Sophie must have been a most ingenious and well- 
informed person, for she approached Dumas in all 
hostility and candour. She plunged direct into 
the subject, presuming that he had acquired the 
knowledge of this special tidbit from some outside 
source. 

Dumas was evidently greatly flattered, and gave 
her every possible information, but the experiment 
was not a success, and the fair cordon-hleu began 
to throw out the suspicion that Dumas had acquired 
his culinary accomplishments from some other 
source than that he had generally admitted. It was 
at this time that Dumas was at the crux of his 
affairs with his collaborators. 

Accordingly Sophie made her pronouncement 
that it was with Dumas' cooking as it was with his 
romances, and that he was " un grand diable de 
vaniteuxf 

At his home in the Rue Chaussee d'Antin Dumas 
served many an epicurean feast to his intimates; 
preparing, it is said, everything with his own hands, 
even to the stripping of the cabbage-leaves for the 
soupe aux choux, " sleeves rolled up, and a large 
apron around his waist." 



Ube ©ads ot Bumas 113 

A favourite menu was soupe aux choux, the now 
famous carp, a ragout de mottton, a rHongroise; 
roti de faisans, and a salade Japonaise — whatever 
that may have been; the ices and gateaux being 
sent in from a patissier's. 

The customs of the theatre in Paris are, and 
always have been, pecuHar. Dumas himself tells 
how, upon one occasion, just after he had come 
permanently to live there, he had placed himself 
beside an immense queue of people awaiting ad- 
mission to the Porte St. Martin. 

He was not aware of the procedure of lining up 
before the entrance-doors, and when one well up in 
the line offered to sell him his place for twenty 
sous — held since midday — Dumas willingly paid 
it, and, not knowing that it did not include ad- 
mission to the performance, was exceedingly dis- 
traught when the time came to actually pay for 
places. This may seem a simple matter in a later 
day, and to us who have become familiar with similar 
conditions in Paris and elsewhere; but it serves tO' 
show the guilelessness of Dumas, and his little re- 
gard for business procedure of any sort. 

The incident is continued in his own words, to 
the effect that he " finally purchased a bit of paste- 
board that once had been white, which I presented 



114 Dumas' Paris 

to the check-taker and received in return another of 
red. . . . My appearance in the amphitheatre of the 
house must have been astonishing. I was the very 
latest Villers-Cotterets fashion, but a revolution had 
taken place in Paris which had not yet reached my 
native place. My hair was long, and, being frizzled, 
it formed a gigantic aureole around my head. I was 
received with roars of laughter. ... I dealt the 
foremost scoffer a vigorous slap in the face, and 
said, at the same time, * My name is Alexandre 
Dumas. For to-morrow, I am staying at the Hotel 
des Vieux-Augustins, and after that at No. i Place 
des Italiens.' " 

By some incomprehensible means Dumas was 
hustled out of the theatre and on to the sidewalk — 
for disturbing the performance, though the perform- 
ance had not yet begun. He tried his luck again, 
however, and this time bought a place at two francs 
fifty centimes. 

Every visitor to Paris has recognized the pre- 
eminence of the " Opera " as a social institution. 
The National Opera, or the Theatre Imperial de 
rOpera, as it was originally known, in the Rue 
Lepelletier, just off the Boulevard des Italiens, was 
the progenitor of the splendid establishment which 
now terminates the westerly end of the Avenue 
de rOpera. The more ancient " Grand Opera " was 



XTbe parts ot Dumas us 

uncontestably the most splendid, the most pompous, 
and the most influential of its contemporary institu- 
tions throughout Europe. 

The origin of the '' Grand Opera " was as remote 
as the times of Anne of Austria, who, it will be re- 
called, had a most passionate regard for musique 
and spectacle, and Mazarin caused to be brought 
from Italy musicians who represented before the 
queen " musical pieces " which proved highly suc- 
cessful. 

Later, in 1672, Louis XIV. accorded the privilege 
of the Opera to Lulli, a distinguished musician of 
Florence, and the theatre of the Palais Royal was 
ceded to the uses of Academic de Musique. 

After the fire of 1763, the Opera was transferred 
to the Tuileries, but removed again, because of 
another fire, to the Porte St. Martin, where it re- 
mained until 1794, when it was transferred to a 
new house which had been constructed for it in the 
Rue Richelieu. 

Again in 1820 it was removed to a new estab- 
lishment, which had been erected on the site of 
the former Hotel de Choiseul. 

This house had accommodations for but two 
thousand spectators, and, in spite of its sumptuous- 
ness and rank, was distinctly inferior in point of 
size to many opera-houses and theatres elsewhere. 



ii6 5)ttma0' Paris 

Up to this time the management had been gov- 
erned after the manner of the old regime, " by 
three gentlemen of the king's own establishment, in 
concurrence with the services of a working di- 
rector," and the royal privy purse was virtually re- 
sponsible for the expenses. Louis-Philippe astutely 
shifted the responsibility to the public exchequer. 

In 1 83 1, Dr. Louis Veron, the founder of the 
Revue de Paris, — since supplanted by the Revue 
des Deux Mondes, — became the manager and 
director. Doctor Veron has been called as much the 
quintessence of the life of Paris of the first half of 
the nineteenth century as was Napoleon I. of the 
history of France. 

Albert Vandam, the author of " An Englishman 
in Paris,'* significantly enough links Veron's name 
in his recollections with that of Dumas, except that 
he places Dumas first. 

" Robert le Diable " and Taglioni made Veron ^s 
success and his fortune, though he himself was a 
master of publicity. From 183 1 onward, during 
Veron's incumbency, the newspapers contained col- 
umn after column of the " puff personal," not only 
with respect to Veron himself, but down through the 
galaxy of singers and dancers to the veriest stage- 
carpenter, scenic artist, and call-boy. 

The modern managers have advanced somewhat 



Hbe pads ot Bumas ii7 

upon these premature efforts; but then the art was 
in its infancy, and, as Veron himself was a joumahst 
and newspaper proprietor, he probably well under- 
stood the gentle art of exchanging favouring puffs 
of one commodity for those of another. 

These were the days of the first successes of 
Meyerbeer, Halevy, Auber, and Duprez; of Ta- 
glioni, who danced herself into a nebula of glory, 
and later into a shadow which inspired the spiteful 
critics into condemnation of her waning power. 

It has been said that Marie Taglioni was by no 
means a good-looking woman. Indeed, she must 
have been decidedly plain. Her manners, too, were 
apparently not affable, and " her reception of French- 
men was freezing to a degree — when she thawed it 
was to Russians, Englishmen, or Viennese." " One 
of her shoulders was higher than the other, she 
limped slightly, and, moreover, waddled like a 
duck." Clearly a stage setting was necessary to 
show off her charms. She was what the French 
call " une pimheche." 

The architectural effect produced by the exterior 
of this forerunner of the present opera was by no 
means one of monumental splendour. Its archi- 
tect, Debret, was scathingly criticized for its anom- 
alies. A newspaper anecdote of the time recounts 
the circumstance of a provincial who, upon asking 



n8 Dumas' parts 

his way thither, was met with the direction, " That 
way — the first large gateway on your right." 

Near by was the estabHshment of the famous 
Itahan restaurateur, Paolo' Broggi, the resort of 
many singers, and the Estaminet du Divan, a sort 
of humble counterpart of the Cafe Riche or the 
Cafe des Anglais, but which proclaimed a much 
more literary atmosphere than many of the bigger 
establishments on the boulevards. Vandam relates 
of this house of call that " it is a positive fact that 
the gargon would ask, * Does monsieur desire Sue's 
or Dumas' feuilleton with his cafe? ' " 

Of the Opera which was burned in 1781, Dumas, 
in " The Queen's Necklace," has a chapter devoted 
to " Some Words about the Opera." It is an 
interesting, albeit a rather superfluous, interpola- 
tion in a romance of intrigue and adventure: 

" The Opera, that temple of pleasure at Paris, 
was burned in the month of June, 1781. Twenty 
persons had perished in the ruins; and, as it was 
the second time within eighteen years that this had 
happened, it created a prejudice against the place 
where it then stood, in the Palais Royal, and the 
king had ordered its removal to a less central spot. 
The place chosen was La Porte St. Martin. 

" The king, vexed to see Paris deprived for so 



ZM Paris ot Dumas 119 

long of its Opera, became as sorrowful as if the 
arrivals of grain had ceased, or bread had risen 
to more than seven sous the quartern loaf. It was 
melancholy to see the nobility, the army, and the 
citizens without their after-dinner amusement; and 
to see the promenades thronged with the unem- 
ployed divinities, from the chorus-singers tO' the 
prima donnas. 

" An architect was then introduced to the king, 
full of new plans, who promised so perfect a ventila- 
tion, that even in case of fire no one could be 
smothered. He would make eight doors for exit, 
besides five large windows placed so low that any 
one could jump out of them. In the place of the 
beautiful hall of Moreau he was to erect a building 
with ninety-six feet of frontage toward the boule- 
vard, ornamented with eight caryatides on pillars 
forming three entrance-doors, a bas-relief above the 
capitals, and a gallery with three windows. The 
stage was to be thirty-six feet wide, the theatre 
seventy-two feet deep and eighty across, from one 
wall to the other. He asked only seventy-five days 
and nights before he opened it to the public. 

" This appeared tO' all a mere gasconade, and was 
much laughed at. The king, however, concluded 
the agreement with him. Lenoir set to work, and 
kept his word. But the public feared that a building 



120 Bumas' iparis 

so quickly erected could not be safe, and when it 
opened no one would go. 

" Even the few courageous ones who did go to 
the first representation of * Adele de Ponthieu ' made 
their wills first. The architect was in despair. He 
came to the king to consult him as to what was to 
be done. 

" It was just after the birth of the dauphin ; all 
Paris was full of joy. The king advised him to 
announce a gratuitous performance in honour of the 
event, and give a ball after. Doubtless plenty would 
come, and if the theatre stood, its safety was estab- 
lished. 

" * Thanks, Sire,' said the architect. 

" ' But reflect, first,' said the king, * if there be a 
crowd, are you sure of your building ? ' 

" ' Sire, I am sure, and shall go there myself.' 

" * I will go to the second representation,' said 
the king. 

" The architect followed this advice. They played 
* Adele de Ponthieu ' to three thousand spectators, 
who afterward danced. After this there could be 
no more fear." 

It was three years after that Madame and the car- 
dinal went to the celebrated ball, the account of which 
follows in the subsequent chapter of the romance. 



XTbe parts ot Dumas 121 

Dumas as a dramatist was not so very different 
from Dumas the novelist. When he first came to 
Paris the French stage was by no means at a low 
and stagnant ebb — at least, it was not the thin, 
watery concoction that many English writers would 
have us believe ; and, furthermore, the world's great 
dramatist — Shakespeare — had been and was still 
influencing and inspiring the French playwright and 
actor alike. 

It was the " Hamlet " of Ducis — a very French 
Hamlet, but still Hamlet — and the memory of 
an early interview with Talma that first set fire 
to the fuel of the stage-fever which afterward 
produced Dumas the dramatist. 

Dumas was not always truthful, or, at least, cor- 
rect, in his facts, but he did not offend exceedingly, 
and he was plausible; as much so, at any rate, as 
Scott, who had erred to the extent of fifteen years 
in his account of the death of Amy Robsart. 

In 1824 was born Alexandre Dumas Ms, and at 
this time the parent was collaborating with Soulie 
in an attempted, but unfinished, dramatization of 
Scott's " Old Mortality." 

By 1830, after he had left official work, Dumas 
had produced that drama of the Valois, " Henri 
III.," at the Theatre Frangais, where more 
than a century before Voltaire had produced his 



122 Dumas' pads 

first play, " CEdipe/' and where the " Hemani " of 
Victor Hugo had just been produced. 

It was a splendid and gorgeous event, and the 
adventures of the Duchesse de Guise, St. Megrin, 
Henri IH. and his satellites proved to the large 
and distinguished audience present nO' inconspic- 
uous element in the success of the future king of 
romance. It was a veritable triumph, and for the 
time the author was more talked of and better 
known than was HugO', who' had already entered the 
arena, but whose assured fame scarcely dates from 
before " Hemani," whose first presentation — 
though it was afterward performed over three hun- 
dred times in the same theatre — was in February 
of the same year. 

Voltaire had been dead scarce a half-century, 
but already the dust lay thick on his dramatic 
works, and the world of Paris was looking eagerly 
forward to the achievements of the new school. 
One cannot perhaps claim for Dumas that he was 
in direct lineage of Shakespeare, — as was claimed 
for Hugo, and with some merit, — but he was un- 
doubtedly one of the first of the race of the popular 
French playwrights whose fame is perpetuated to- 
day by Sardou. At any rate, it was a classic 
struggle which was inaugurated in France — by 
literature and the drama — in the early half of the 




D'ARTAGNAN 
From the Dumas Statue by Gustave Dore 



XTbe Paris ot Bumas 123 

nineteenth century, and one which was a frank 
rebelHon against the rigid rules by which their arts 
had been restrained — especially dramatic art. 

With all due credit, then, to Hugo, it was Dumas 
who led the romanticists through the breach that 
was slowly opening; though at the same time one 
may properly enough recall the names of Alfred 
de Musset, Theophile Gautier, and Gerard de 
Nerval. 

Dumas' next play was in " classical form " — 
" Christine." 

Mere chance brought Dumas into an acquaint- 
ance with the history of Christine of Sweden, and, 
though the play was written and accepted before 
'' Henri IH. et Sa Cour," it was not until some 
time later that it was produced at the Odeon; the 
recollection of which also brings up the name of 
Mile. Mars. 

The statue in Paris in the Place Malesherbes, 
erected to the memory of Dumas, has been highly 
commended in conception and execution. It was 
the work of Gustave Dore, and, truth to tell, it 
has some wonderfully effective sculptures in bronze. 
A group of three symbolical figures en face, and a 
lifelike and life-sized representation of the coura- 
geous D'Artagnan dfarriere. These details are 



124 H)uma5' Paris 

charming when reproduced on paper by process of 
photography or the hand of an artist. Indeed, 
they are of much the same quahty when viewed as 
details, but in the ensemble, combined with a cold, 
inartistic base or pedestal, which is crowned by a 
seated effigy of Dumas — also life-size — clad in 
the unlovely raiment of the latter nineteenth cen- 
tury, there is much tO' be desired. 

Statues, be they bronze or marble, are often ar- 
tistically successful when their figures are covered 
with picturesque mediaeval garments, but they are 
invariably a failure, in an artistic sense, when 
clothed in latter-day garb. Doublet and hose, and 
sword and cloak lend themselves unmistakably to 
artistic expression. Trousers and top-hats do not. 
Just back of the Place Malesherbes is the Avenue 
de Villiers — a street of fine houses, many of them 
studio apartments, of Paris's most famous artists. 
Here at No. 94 lived Alexandre Dumas during the 
later years of his life; so it is fitting that his monu- 
ment should be placed in this vicinity. The house 
was afterward occupied by Dumas His, and more 
lately by his widow, but now it has passed into 
other hands. 

Of interest to Americans is the fact which has 
been recorded by some one who was au couranf 
with Parisian affairs of the day, " that the United 



Ube parts of Dumas 125 

States Minister to France, Mr. John Big-elow, 
breakfasted with Dumas at St. Gratien, near Paris," 
when it came out that he (Dumas) had a notion 
to go out to America as a war correspondent for 
the French papers; the Civil War was not then 
over. Unhappily for all of us, he did not go, and 
so a truly great book was lost to the world. 

In this same connection it has been said that 
Dumas' " quadroon autographs " were sold in the 
United States, to provide additional funds for the 
widows and orphans of slain abolitionists. As it is 
apocryphally said that they sold for a matter of a 
hundred and twenty dollars each, the sum must 
have reached considerable proportions, if their 
number was great. 



CHAPTER VI. 



OLD PARIS 



rHE Paris of Dumas was Meryon's — 
though it is well on toward a half-cen- 
tury since either of them saw it. Hence 
it is no longer theirs; but the master romancer and 
the master etcher had much in common. 

They both drew with a fine, free hand, the one 
in words that burn themselves in the memory, and 
the other in lines which, once bitten on the copper 
plate, are come down to us in indelible fashion. 
The mention of Meryon and his art is no mere 
rambling of the pen. Like that of Dumas, his art 
depicted those bold, broad impressions which re- 
built " old Paris " in a manner which is only 
comparable to the background which Dumas gave to 
" Les Trois Mousquetaires." 

The iconoclastic Haussman caused much to dis- 
appear, and it is hard to trace the footsteps of many 
a character of history and romance, whose incom- 

126 



©It) Paris 127 

ings and outgoings are otherwise very familiar to 
us. 

There are many distinct cities which go to make 
up Paris itself, each differing from the other, but 
Dumas and Meryon drew them each and all with 
unerring fidelity: Dumas the University Quarter 
and the faubourgs in " Les Trois Mousquetaires," 
and Meryon the Cite in " The Stryge." 

The sheer beauty and charm of old-world Paris 
was never more strongly suggested than in the work 
of these two masters, who have given a perma- 
nence to the abodes of history and romance w^hich 
would otherwise have been wanting. It is a pleas- 
urable occupation to hunt up the dwellings of 
those personages who may, or may not, have lived 
in the real flesh and blood. The mere fact that they 
lived in the pages of a Dumas — or for that matter 
of a Balzac or a Hugo — is excuse enough for most 
of us to seek to follow in their footsteps. 

In spite of the splendour of the present and the 
past, Paris is by no means too great to prevent 
one's tracing its old outlines, streets, and landmarks, 
even though they have disappeared to-day, and the 
site of the famous Hotel Chevreuse or the Carmelite 
establishment in the Rue Vaugirard — against 
whose wall D'Artagnan and his fellows put up that 
gallant fight against the cardinal's guard — are in 



128 Dumas' parts 

the same geographical positions that they always 
were, if their immediate surroundings have changed, 
as they assuredly have. 

Indeed, the sturdy wall which kept the Carmelite 
friars from contact with the outer world has be- 
come a mere hoarding for gaudily coloured posters, 
and the magnificent Hotel Chevreuse on the Boule- 
vard St. Germain has been incorporated into a 
modern apartment-house, and its garden cut 
through by the Boulevard Raspail. 

The destruction of " Old Paris " — the gabled, 
half-timbered, mediaeval city — is not only an ar- 
tistic regret, but a personal one to all who know 
intimately the city's history and romance. It was 
inevitable, of course, but it is deplorable. 

Meryon, too, like Dumas, etched details with a 
certain regard for effect rather than a colder pre- 
ciseness, which could hardly mean so much as an 
impression of a mood. They both sought the pic- 
turesque element, and naturally imparted to every- 
thing modern with which they came into contact 
the same charm of reality which characterized the 
tangible results of their labours. 

Nothing was left to chance, though much may 
— we have reason to think — have been sponta- 
neous. The witchery of a picturesque impression 



©lb Paris 129 

is ever great, but the frequency of its occurrence 
is growing less and less. 

To-day we have few romancers, few painters or 
etchers of fleeting moods or impressions, and are 
fast becoming schooled in the tenets of Zola and 
Baudry, to the glorification of realism, but to the 
death and deep burial of the far more healthy ro- 
manticism of the masters of a few generations 
since. 

To the Roman occupation of Paris succeeded 
that of the Franks, and Clovis, son of Childerie 
and grandson of Merovee. after his conversion to 
Christianity at Reims, established the seat of his 
empire at Paris. 

Childebert, the descendant of Clovis, — who had 
taken unto himself the title King of Paris, — in 
524 laid the foundation of the first figlise de Notre 
Dame. 

The kings of the second race lived in Paris but 
little, and under the feeble successors of Charle- 
magne the city became the particular domain of 
the hereditary counts. In the year 845 the Nor- 
mans came up the river by boat and razed all of 
that part known even to-day as La Cite, hence the 
extreme improbability of there being existing re- 
mains of an earlier date than this, which are to-day 



13° Dumas' Paris 

recognizable. After successive disasters and inva- 
sions, it became necessary that new quartiers and 
new streets should be formed and populated, and 
under the reign of Louis VII. the walls were ex- 
tended to include, on the right bank, Le Bourg 
FAbbe, Le Bourg Thibourg, Le Beau-Bourg, Le 
Bourg St. Martin, — regions which have since been 
occupied by the Rues St. Martin, Beaubourg, Bour- 
tebourg, and Bourg FAbbe, — and, on the right 
bank, St. Germain des Pres, St. Victor, and St. 
Michel. 

Since this time Paris has been divided into three 
distinct parts : La Ville, to the north of the Seine, 
La Cite, in the centre, and L'Universite, in the 
south. 

The second enceinte did not long suffice to en- 
close the habitations of the people, and in the year 
1190 Philippe- Auguste constructed the third wall, 
which was strengthened by five hundred towers 
and surrounded by a deep fosse^ perpetuated to-day 
as the Rempart des Fosses. At this time the first 
attempts were made at paving the city streets, prin- 
cipally at the instigation of the wealthy Gerard de 
Poissy, whose name has since been given to an 
imposing street on the south bank. 

Again, in 1356, the famous Etienne Marcel 
commenced the work of the fourth enceinte. On 



©ID parts 131 

the south, the walls were not greatly extended, but 
on the north they underwent a considerable ag- 
grandizement. Fortified gateways were erected at 
the extremity of the Rue de St. Antoine, and others 
were known variously as the Porte du Temple and 
Porte St. Denis. Other chief features of the time 
— landmarks one may call them — were the Porte 
St. Honore, which was connected with the river- 
bank by a prolonged wall, the Tour du Bois, and 
a new fortification — as a guardian against inter- 
nal warfare, it would seem — at the upper end of 
the He de la Cite. 

Toward the end of the reign of Louis XL the 
city had become repeopled, after many preceding 
years of flood, ravage, and famine, and contained, 
it is said, nearly three hundred thousand souls. 

From this reign, too, dates the establishment of 
the first printing-shop in Paris, the letter-post, and 
the poste-chaise. Charles VII., the son of Louis XL, 
united with the Bibliotheque Royal those of the 
Kings of Naples. 

Louis XII., who followed, did little to beautify 
the city, but his parental care for the inhabitants 
reduced the income of the tax-gatherer and en- 
deared his name tO' all as the Pere du Peiiple. 

Frangois I. — whose glorious name as the insti- 
gator of much that has since become national in 



132 2)umas' parts 

French art — considerably enlarged the fortifica- 
tions on the west, and executed the most momen- 
tous embellishments which had yet taken place in 
the city. In public edifices he employed, or caused 
his architects to employ, the Greek orders, and the 
paintings by Italian hands and the sculptures of 
Goujon were the highest expressions of the art of 
the Renaissance, which had grown so abundantly 
from the seed sown by Charles VIII. upon his re- 
turn from his wanderings in Italy. 

It may be questioned if the art of the Renais- 
sance is really beautiful; it is, however, unde- 
niably effective in its luxuriant, if often ill-assorted, 
details; so why revile it here? It was the prime 
cause, more than all others put together, of the 
real adornment of Paris; and, in truth, was far 
more successful in the application of its principles 
here than elsewhere. 

During the reign of Frangois I. were built, or 
rebuilt, the great figlises de St. Gervais, St. Ger- 
main TAuxerrois, and St. Merry, as well as the 
Hotel de Ville. The Louvre was reconstructed on 
a new plan, and the Faubourg St. Germain was 
laid out anew. 

Under Henri 11. the work on the Louvre was 
completed, and the Hopital des Petites Maisons 
constructed. It was Henri II., too, who first or- 



®l& parts 133 

dained that the effigies of the kings should be placed 
upon all coins. 

The principal edifices built under Charles IX. 
were the Palais des Tuileries, Hotel de Soissons, 
the Jesuit College, and the Hopital du St. Jacques 
du Haut Pas. 

Henri HI. erected the church of the Jesuits in the 
Rue St. Antoine, the %lise de St. Paul et St. 
Louis, the Monastere des Feuillants, the Hotel de 
Bourgogne, and the Theatre Italien. 

Under Henri IV. was achieved the Pont Neuf, 
whose centre piers just impinge upon the lower end 
of the He de la Cite; the Quais de I'Arsenal, de 
I'Horloge, des Orphelins, de I'Ecole, de la Megis- 
serie, de Conti, and des Augustins; la Place 
Dauphine, and the Rue Dauphine. The Place 
Royale came to replace — in the Quartier du 
Marais — the old Palais des Tournelles, the pleasure 
of so many kings, Frangois I. in particular. 

Louis XIIL, the feeble king who reigned with- 
out governing, saw many improvements, which, 
however, grew up in spite of the monarch rather 
than because of him. 

There was a general furbishing up of the streets 
and quais. Marie de Medicis built the Palais du 
Luxembourg and planted the Cours la Reine ; many 
new bridges were constructed and new monuments 



134 2)umas' Paris 

set up, among others the Palais Royal, at this time 
called the Palais Cardinal ; the figlise St. Roch ; the 
Oratoire; le Val-de-Grace ; les Madelonnettes ; la 
Salpetriere; the Sorbonne, and the Jardin des 
Plantes. Many public places were also decorated 
with statues : the effigy of Henri IV. was placed 
on the Pont Neuf, and of Louis XII. in the Place 
Royale. 

By this time the population had overflowed the 
walls of Philippe-Auguste, already enlarged by 
Frangois I., and Louis XIV. overturned their 
towers and ramparts, and filled their fosses, be- 
lieving that a strong community needed no such 
protections. 

These ancient fortifications were replaced by the 
boulevards which exist even unto to-day — not only 
in Paris, but in most French towns and cities — 
unequalled elsewhere in all the world. 

Up to the reign of Louis XIV. the population 
of Paris had, for the most part, been lodged in 
narrow, muddy streets, which had subjected them 
tO' many indescribable discomforts. Meanwhile, 
during the glorious reign of Louis XIV., Paris 
achieved great extension of area and splendour; 
many new streets were opened in the different quar- 
tiers, others were laid out anew or abolished alto- 
gether, more than thirty churches were built, — 




PONT NEUF. PONT AU CHANGE 



©ID parts 135 

"all highly beautiful," say the guide-books. But 
they are not: Paris churches taken together are a 
decidedly mixed lot, some good in parts and yet 
execrable in other parts, and many even do not 
express any intimation whatever of good architec- 
tural forms. 

The Pont au Change was rebuilt, and yet four 
other bridges were made necessary to permit of 
better circulation between the various faubourgs 
and quartiers. 

To the credit of Louis XIV. must also be put 
down the Hotel des Invalides, the Observatoire, the 
magnificent colonnade of the Louvre, the Pont 
Royal, the College des Quatre Nations, the Biblio- 
theque Royale, numerous fountains and statues, the 
royal glass, porcelain, and tapestry manufactories, 
the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, and the Boule- 
vards St. Denis and St. Martin. 

Saint Foix (in his " Essais sur Paris ") has said 
that it was Louis XIV. who first gave to the reign 
of a French monarch the eclat of grandeur and 
magnificence, not only for his court, but for his 
capital and his people. 

Under the succeeding reign of Louis XV. the 
beautifying of Paris took another flight. On the 
place which first bore the name of the monarch 
himself, but which is to-day known as the Place 



13^ S)umas' Paris 

de la Concorde, were erected a pair of richly dec- 
orated monuments which quite rivalled in achieve- 
ment the superb colonnaded Louvre of the previous 
reign, the Champs Elysees were replanted, the ficole 
Militaire, the ficole de Droit, and the Hotel de la 
Monnaie were erected, and still other additional 
boulevards and magnificent streets were planned 
out. 

A new church came into being with St. Gene- 
vieve, which afterward became the Pantheon. 

The reign following saw the final achievement of 
all these splendid undertakings; then came the 
Revolution, that political terror which would have 
upset all established institutions; and if Paris, the 
city of splendid houses, did not become merely a 
cemetery of tombs, it was not because maniacal 
fanaticism and fury were lacking. 

Religious, civic, and military establishments were 
razed, demolished, or burnt, regardless of their 
past associations or present artistic worth. 

In a way, however, these sacrilegious demoli- 
tions gave cause to much energetic rebuilding and 
laying out of the old city anew, in the years 
immediately succeeding the period of the Revolu- 
tion, which as an historical event has no place in 
this book other than mere mention, as it may have 
been referred to by Dumas. 



©lb Paris 137 

It was Napoleon who' undertook the rehabilitation 
of Paris, with an energy and foresight only equalled 
by his prowess as a master of men. 

He occupied himself above all with what the 
French themselves would call those monuments et 
decorations utiles, as might be expected of his abil- 
ities as an organizer. The canal from the river Ourcq 
through La Villette to the Seine was, at the Fosses 
de la Bastille, cleared and emptied of its long stag- 
nant waters; abattoirs were constructed in con- 
venient places, in order to do away with the vast 
herds of cattle which for centuries had been paraded 
through the most luxurious of the city's streets; 
new markets were opened, and numerous fountains 
and watering-troughs were erected in various parts 
of the city; four new and ornate bridges were 
thrown across the Seine, the magnificent Rues Cas- 
tiglione and de la Paix, extending from the Tuile- 
ries to the interior boulevards, were opened up; 
the Place Vendome was then endowed with its 
bronze column, which stands to-day; the splendid 
and utile Rue de Rivoli was made beside the garden 
of the Tuileries (it has since been prolonged 
to the Hotel de Ville). 

Napoleon also founded the Palais de la Bourse 
(1808), and caused to be erected a superb iron 



13S Dumas' parts 

grille which should separate the Place du Carrousel 
from the Tuileries. 

Under the Restoration little happened with re- 
gard to the beautifying and aggrandizing of the city, 
though certain improvements of a purely economic 
and social nature made their own way. 

The literature and art of Dumas and his compeers 
were making such sturdy progress as to give Paris 
that preeminence in these finer elements of life, 
which, before or since, has not been equalled else- 
where. 

Since the Revolution of 1830 have been com- 
pleted the Arc de Triomphe de I'Etoile (com- 
menced by Napoleon L), the figlise de la Madeleine, 
the fine hotel of the Quai d'Orsay, the Palais des 
Beaux Arts, the restoration of the Chambre des 
Deputes (the old Palais Bourbon), and the statues 
set up in the Place de la Concorde; though it is 
only since the ill-starred Franco-Prussian aifaire of 
187 1 that Strasbourg's doleful figure has been 
buried in jet and alabaster sentiments, so dear to 
the Frenchman of all ranks, as an outward ex- 
pression of grief. 

At the commencement of the Second Empire the 
fortifications, as they then existed, possessed a cir- 
cumference of something above thirty-three kilo- 
metres — approximately nineteen miles. The walls 



Qlt> iParis 139 

are astonishingly thick, and their fosses wide and 
deep. The surrounding exterior forts '' de distance 
en distance^' are a unique feature of the general 
scheme of defence, and played, as it will be recalled, 
no unimportant part in the investiture of the city 
by the Germans in the seventies. 

A French writer of the early days of the last 
Empire says : " These new fortifications are in their 
ensemble a gigantic work." They are, indeed — 
though, in spite of their immensity, they do not 
impress the lay observer even as to impregnability 
as do the wonderful walls and ramparts of Car- 
cassonne, or dead Aigues-Mortes in the Midi of 
France; those wonderful somnolent old cities of a 
glorious past, long since departed. 

The fortifications of Paris, however, are a won- 
derfully utile thing, and must ever have an un- 
fathomable interest for all who have followed their 
evolution from the restricted battlements of the 
early Roman city. 

The Parisian has, perhaps, cause to regret that 
these turf-covered battlements somewhat restrict 
his ''promenades environnantes'' but what would 
you? Once outside, through any of the gateways, 
the Avenue de la Grande Armee, — which is the most 
splendid, — or the Porte du Canal de I'Ourcq, — 
which is the least luxurious, though by no means 



I40 2)umas' parts 

is it unpicturesque ; indeed, it has more of that 
variable quahty, perhaps, than any other, — one 
comes into the charm of the French countryside; 
that is, if he knows in which direction to turn. 
At any rate, he comes immediately into contact 
with a life which is quite different from any phase 
which is to be seen within the barrier. 

From the Revolution of 1848 to the first years 
of the Second Empire, which ought properly to be 
treated by itself, — and so shall be, — there came 
into being many and vast demolitions and improve- 
ments. 

Paris was a vast atelier of construction, where 
agile minds conceived, and the artisan and crafts- 
man executed, monumental glories and improve- 
ments which can only be likened tO' the focusing 
of the image upon the ground glass. 

The prolongation of the Rue de Rivoli was put 
through; the Boulevards Sebastopol, Malesherbes, 
— where in the Place Malesherbes is that appealing 
monument to Dumas by Gustave Dore, — du Prince 
Eugene, St. Germain, Magenta, the Rue des ficoles, 
and many others. All of which tended to change 
the very face and features of the Paris the world 
had known hitherto. 

The " Caserne Napoleon " had received its guests, 
and the Tour St. Jacques, from which point of 



Ql^ pads 141 

vantage the " clerk of the weather " to-day prognos- 
ticates for Paris, had been restored. Magnificent 
estabhshments of all sorts and ranks had been built, 
the Palais de I'Industrie (since razed) had opened 
its doors to the work of all nations, in the exhibition 
of 1855, 

Of Paris, one may well concentrate one's estimate 
in five words : " Each epoch has been rich," also 
prolific, in benefits, intentions, and creations of all 
manner of estimable and admirable achievements. 

By favour of these efforts of all the reigns and 
governments which have gone before, the Paris 
of to-day in its architectural glories, its monuments 
in stone, and the very atmosphere of its streets, 
places, and boulevards, is assuredly the most mar- 
vellous of all the cities of Europe. 

It may not be an exceedingly pleasant subject, but 
there is, and always has been, a certain fascination 
about a visit to a cemetery which ranks, in the 
minds of many well-informed and refined persons, 
far above even the contemplation of great churches 
themselves. 

It may be a morbid taste, or it may not. Cer- 
tainly there seems to be no reason why a consid- 
erable amount of really valuable facts might not 
be impressed upon the retina of a traveller who 



142 S)umas' IPatfs 

should do the round of Campos Santos, Cimetieres 
and burial-grounds in various lands. 

In this respect, as in many others, Paris leads 
the way for sheer interest in its tombs and sepul- 
chres, at Montmartre and Pere la Chaise. 

In no other burial-ground in the world — unless 
it be Mount Auburn, near Boston, where, if the 
world-wide name and fame of those there buried 
are not so great as those at Paris, their names are 
at least as much household words to English-speak- 
ing folk, as are those of the old-wodd resting- 
place to the French themselves — are to be found 
so many celebrated names. 

There are a quartette of these famous resting- 
places at Paris which, since the coming of the nine- 
teenth century, have had an absorbing interest for 
the curiously inclined. Pere la Chaise, Montmartre, 
the royal sepulchres in the old abbey church of St. 
Denis, and the churchyard of St. Innocents. 

" Man,'' said Sir Thomas Brown, " is a noble 
animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the 
grave." Why this should be so, it is not the prov- 
ince of this book to explain, nor even to justify 
the gorgeous and ill-mannered monuments which 
are often erected over his bones. 

The catacombs of Paris are purposely ignored 
here^ as appealing to a special variety of morbidity 




PORTRAIT OF HENRY IV. 



©l& Paris 143 

which IS as unpleasant to deal with and to contem- 
plate as are snakes preserved in spirit, and as would 
be — were we allowed to see them — the sacred 
human reliques which are preserved, even to-day, at 
various pilgrims' shrines throughout the Christian 
world. That vast royal sepulchre of the abbey church 
of St. Denis, which had been so outrageously de- 
spoiled by the decree of the Convention in 1793, 
was in a measure set to rights by Louis XVIII. , 
when he caused to be returned from the Petits 
Augustins, now the Palais des Beaux Arts, and 
elsewhere, such of the monuments as had not been 
actually destroyed. The actual spoliation of these 
shrines belongs to an earlier day than that of which 
this book deals. 

The history of it forms as lurid a chapter as 
any known to the records of riot and sacrilege in 
France; and the more the pity that the motion of 
Barrere {'' La main puissante de la Republique doit 
effacer inpitoyahlement ces epitaphes'*) to destroy 
these royal tombs should have had official endorse- 
ment. 

The details of these barbarous exhumations were 
curious, but not edifying; the corpse of Turenne 
was exhibited around the city ; Henri IV. — " his 
features still being perfect" — was kicked and 
bunted about like a football; Louis XIV. was 



144 Bumas' Paris 

found in a perfect preservation, but entirely black; 
Louis VIII. had been sewed up in a leather sack; 
and Francois I. and his family " had become much 
decayed ; " so, too, with many of the later Bour- 
bons. 

In general these bodies were deposited in a com- 
mon pit, which had been dug near the north en- 
trance to the abbey, and thus, for the first time in 
the many centuries covered by the period of their 
respected demises, their dust was to mingle in a 
common blend, and all factions were to become one. 

Viollet-le-Duc, at the instruction of Napoleon III., 
set up again, following somewhat an approxima- 
tion of the original plan, the various monuments 
which had been so thoroughly scattered, and which, 
since their return to the old abbey, had been herded 
together without a pretence at order in the crypt. 

Paris had for centuries been wretchedly supplied 
with cimetieres. For long one only had existed, 
that of the churchyard of St. Innocents', originally 
a piece of the royal domain lying without the walls, 
and given by one of the French kings as a burial- 
place for the citizens, when interments within the 
city were forbidden. 

It has been calculated that from the time of 
Philippe-Auguste over a million bodies had been 
interred in these fosses communes. 



©It) parts 145 

In 1785 the Council of State decreed that the 
cemetery should be cleared of its dead and con- 
verted into a market-place. Cleared it was not, 
but it has since become a market-place, and the 
waters of the Fontaine des Innocents filter briskly 
through the dust of the dead of ages. 

Sometime in the early part of the nineteenth 
century the funeral undertakings of Paris were 
conducted on a sliding scale of prices, ranging 
from four thousand francs in the first class, to as 
low as sixteen francs for the v^ry poor; six classes 
in all. 

This law-ordered tarif would seem to have been 
a good thing for posterity to have perpetuated. 

The artisan or craftsman who fashions the 
funeral monuments of Paris has a peculiar flight 
of fancy all his own; though, be it said, through- 
out the known world, funeral urns and monuments 
have seldom or never been beautiful, graceful, or 
even austere or dignified : they have, in fact, mostly 
been shocking travesties of the ideals and thoughts 
they should have represented. 

It is remarkable that the French architect and 
builder, who knows so well how to design and 
construct the habitation of living man, should ex- 
press himself so badly in his bizarre funeral mon- 



146 Dumas' Paris 

uments and the tawdry tinsel wreaths and flowers 
of their decorations. 

An EngHsh visitor to Paris in the thirties de- 
plored the fact that her cemeteries should be made 
into mere show-places, and perhaps rightly enough. 
At that time they served as a fashionable and polite 
avenue for promenades, and there was (perhaps 
even is to-day) a guide-book published of them, 
and, since grief is paradoxically and proverbially 
dry, there was always a battery of taverns and 
drinking-places flanking their entrances. 

It was observed by a writer in a Parisian journal 
of that day that " in the Cimetiere du Montmartre 
— which was the deposit for the gay part of the 
city — nine tombs out of ten were to the memory 
of persons cut off in their youth ; but that in Pere 
la Chaise — which served principally for the sober 
citizens of Paris — nine out of ten recorded the 
ages of persons who had attained a good old age." 



CHAPTER VII. 

WAYS AND MEANS OF COMMUNICATION 

rHE means of communication in and about 
Paris in former 'days was but a trav- 
esty on the methods of the '' Metropoh- 
tain/' which in our time literally whisks one like 
the wings of the morning, from the Arc de 
Triomphe to the Bois de Vincennes, and from the 
Place de la Nation to the Trocadero. 

In 1850 there were officially enumerated over 
twenty-eight hundred boulevards, avenues, meSy and 
passages, the most lively being St. Honore, Riche- 
lieu, Vivienne, Castiglione, de I'Universite, — 
Dumas lived here at No. 25, in a house formerly 
occupied by Chateaubriand, now the Magazin St. 
Thomas, — de la Chaussee d'Antin, de la Paix, de 
Crenelle, de Bac, St. Denis, St. Martin, St. Antoine, 
and, above all, the Rue de RivoH, — with a length 
of nearly three miles, distinguished at its westerly 
end by its great covered gallery, where the dwell- 

147 



148 Bumas' parts 

ings above are carried on a series of 287 
arcades, flanked by boutiques, not very sumptuous 
to-day, to be sure, but even now a promenade of 
great popularity. At No. 22 Rue de Rivoli, near 
the Rue St. Roch, Dumas himself lived from 1838 
to 1843. 

There were in those days more than a score of 
passages, being for the most part a series of fine 
galleries, in some instances taking the form of a 
rotunda, glass-covered, and surrounded by shops 
with appartements above. The most notable were 
those known as the Panoramas Jouffroy, Vivienne, 
Colbert, de T Opera, Delorme, du Saumon, etc. 

There were more than a hundred squares, or 
places — most of which remain to-day. The most 
famous on the right bank of the Seine are de la 
Concorde, Vendome, du Carrousel, du Palais Royal, 
des Victoires, du Chatelet, de I'Hotel de Ville, 
Royale, des Vosges, and de la Bastille; on the left 
bank, du Pantheon, de St. Sulpice, du Palais Bour- 
bon. Most of these radiating centres of life are 
found in Dumas' pages, the most frequent mention 
being in the D'Artagnan and Valois romances. 

Among the most beautiful and the most fre- 
quented thoroughfares were — and are — the tree- 
bordered quais, and, of course, the boulevards. 

The interior boulevards were laid out at the end 



TKIlaps ant) /iDeans ot Communication 149 

of the seventeenth century on the ancient ramparts 
of the city, and extended from the Madeleine to 
La Bastille, a distance of perhaps three miles. They 
are mostly of a width of thirty-two metres (105 
feet). 

This was the boulevard of the time par excel- 
lence, and its tree-bordered allies — sidewalks and 
roadways — bore, throughout its comparatively 
short length, eleven different names, often changing 
meanwhile as it progressed its physiognomy as 
well. 

On the left bank, the interior boulevard was ex- 
tended from the Jardin des Plantes to the Hotel 
des Invalides ; while the '' boulevards exterieurs " 
formed a second belt of tree-shaded thoroughfares 
of great extent. 

Yet other boulevards of ranking greatness cut 
the rues and avenues tangently, now from one 
bank and then from the other; the most splendid 
of all being the Avenue de TOpera, which, however, 
did not come into being until well after the middle 
of the century. Among these are best recalled 
Sebastopol, St. Germain, St. Martin, Magenta, 
Malesherbes, and others. The Place Malesherbes, 
which intersects the avenue, now contains the 
celebrated Dumas memorial by Dore, and the 



15 o 2)umas' Ipa tis 

neighbouring thoroughfare was the residence of 
Dumas from 1866 to 1870. 

Yet another class of thoroughfares, while con- 
ceived previous to the chronological limits which 
the title puts upon this book, were the vast and 
splendid promenades and rendezvous, with their 
trees, flowers, and fountains; such as the gardens 
of the Tuileries and the Luxembourg, the Champs 
Elysees, the Esplanade des Invalides, and the Bois 
de Boulogne and de Vincennes. 

Dibdin tells of his entree into Paris in the early 
days of the nineteenth century, having journeyed 
by '' malle-poste " from Havre, in the pages of his 
memorable bibliographical tour. 

His observations somewhat antedate the Paris of 
Dumas and his fellows, but changes came but 
slowly, and therein may be found a wealth of 
archaeological and topographical information con- 
cerning the French metropolis; though he does 
compare, detrimentally, the panorama of Paris 
which unrolls from the heights of Passy, to that 
of London from Highgate Woods. 

On the contrary, his impressions change after 
passing the barriers. " Nothing in London," says 
he, " can enter into comparison with the imposing 
spectacle which is presented by the magnificent 
Champs Elysees, with the Chateau of the Tuileries 



Wia^B an^ /iDeans ot Communication 151 

en face, and to the right the superb dome of the 
Invahdes gHstening in the rays of the setting 
sun." 

Paris had at this time 2,948 ''voitures de louage," 
which could be hired for any journey to be made 
within reasonable distance ; and eighty-three which 
were run only on predetermined routes, as were 
the later omnibuses and tram-cars. These 2,948 
carriages were further classified as follows; 900 
■fiacres; 765 cabriolets, circulating in the twelve 
interior arrondissements ; 406 cabriolets for the ex- 
terior; 489 carrosses de remise (livery-coaches), 
and 388 cabriolets de remise. 

The prefet de police, Count Angles, had re- 
ceived from one Godot, an entrepreneur, — a sort of 
early edition of what we know to-day as a company 
promoter, — a proposition to establish a line of 
omnibuses along the quais and boulevards. Au- 
thorization for the scheme was withheld for the 
somewhat doubtful reason that " the constant stop- 
page of the vehicles to set down and take up pas- 
sengers would greatly embarrass other traffic ; " and 
so a new idea was still-born into the world, to come 
to life only in 1828, when another received the 
much coveted authority to make the experiment. 

Already such had been established in Bordeaux 
and Nantes, by an individual by the name of Baudry, 



152 Dumas' iParts 

and he it was who obtained the first concession in 
Paris. 

The first line inaug-urated was divided into two 
sections : Rue de Lancry — Madeleine, and Rue de 
Lancry — Bastille. 

It is recorded that the young — but famous — 
Duchesse de Berry was the first to take passage in 
these " intramural diligences" which she called 
'' le carrosse des malheureux; " perhaps with some 
truth, if something of snobbishness. 

There seems to have been a considerable difficulty 
in attracting a clientele to this new means of com- 
munication. The public hesitated, though the prices 
of the places were decided in their favour, so much 
so that the enterprise came to an untimely end, or, 
at least, its founder did; for he committed suicide 
because of the non-instantaneous success of the 
scheme. 

The concession thereupon passed into other hands, 
and there was created a new type of vehicle of 
sixteen places, drawn by two horses, and priced at 
six sous the place. The new service met with imme- 
diate, if but partial, success, and with the estab- 
lishment of new routes, each served by carriages 
of a distinctive colour, its permanence was as- 
sured. 

Then came the ''Dames Blanches/' — the name 



Ma^s anb /iDeans ot Communtcation 153 

being inspired by Boieldieu's opera, — which made 
the journey between the Porte St. Martin and the 
Madeleine in a quarter of an hour. They were 
painted a cream white, and drawn by a pair of 
white horses, coiffed with white plumes. 

After the establishment of the omnibus came 
other series of vehicles for public service: the 
" Ecossaises" with their gaudily variegated colours, 
the '' Carolines" the " Bearnaises" and the '' Tri- 
cycles ,' which ran on three wheels in order to escape 
the wheel-tax which obtained at the time. 

In spite of the rapid multiplication of omnibus 
lines under Louis-Philippe, their veritable success 
came only with the ingenious system of transfers, 
or '' la correspondance; " a system and a convenience 
whereby one can travel throughout Paris for the 
price of one fare. From this reason alone, perhaps, 
the omnibus and tram system of Paris is unexcelled 
in all the world. This innovation dates, moreover, 
from 1836, and, accordingly, is no new thing, as 
many may suppose. 

Finally, more recently, — though it was during 
the Second Empire, — the different lines were 
fused under the title of the " Compagnie Generale 
des Omnibus." 

'"'' La malle-poste " was an institution of the great- 
est importance to Paris, though of course no more 



154 Bumas' iPatis 

identified with it than with the other cities of 
France between which it ran. It dated, actually 
from the period of the Revolution, and grew, and 
was modified, under the Restoration. It is said 
that its final development came during the reign of 
Louis XVIIL, and grew out of his admiration for 
the " elegance et la rapidite des malles anglaises/' 
which had been duly impressed upon him during 
his sojourn in England. 

This may be so, and doubtless with some justi- 
fication. En passant it is curious to know, and, one 
may say, incredible to realize, that from the G. P. O. 
in London, in this year of enlightenment, there 
leaves each night various mail-coaches — for Dover, 
for Windsor, and perhaps elsewhere. They do not 
carry passengers, but they do give a very bad serv- 
ice in the delivery of certain classes of mail matter. 
The marvel is that such things are acknowledged 
as being fitting and proper to-day. 

In 1836 the " malle-poste'' was reckoned, in 
Paris, as being elegante et rapide, having a speed 
of not less than sixteen kilometres an hour over 
give-and-take roads. 

Each evening, from the courtyard of the Hotel 
des Postes, the coaches left, with galloping horses 
and heavy loads, for the most extreme points of 
the frontier; eighty- six hours to Bordeaux at first, 



Waps ant) /iDeans of Communication 15s 

and finally only forty- four (in 1837) ; one hundred 
hours to Marseilles, later but sixty-eight. 

Stendhal tells of his journey by " malle-poste" 
from Paris to Marseilles in three days, and Victor 
Hugo has said that two nights on the road gave one 
a high idea of the solidite of the human machine; 
and further says, of a journey down the Loire, that 
he recalled only a great tower at Orleans, a candle- 
lit salle of an auberge en route, and, at Blois, a 
bridge with a cross upon it. " In reality, during 
the journey, animation was suspended." 

What we knew, or our forefathers knew, as the 
" poste-chaise/' properly *'*' chaise de poste" came 
in under the Restoration. All the world knows, or 
should know, Edouard Thierry's picturesque descrip- 
tion of it. ''*' Le reve de nos vingt ans, la voiture ou 
Von n'est que deux . . . devant vous le chemin 
lihre, la plaine, la pente rapide, le pont/' " You 
traverse cities and hamlets without number, by the 
grands rues, the grande place, etc." 

In April, 1837, Stendhal quitted Paris under 
exactly these conditions for his tour of France. He 
bought '' une bonne caleche/' and left via Fontaine- 
bleau, Montargis, and Cosne. Two months after, 
however, he returned to the metropolis via Bourges, 
having refused to continue his journey en caleche, 



is6 Dumas' Paris 

preferring the '' malle-poste" and the diligence of 
his youth. 

PubHc diligences, however, had but limited ac- 
commodation on grand occasions; Victor Hugo, 
who had been invited to the consecration of 
Charles X. at Reims, and his friend, Charles Nodier, 
the bibliophile, — also a friend of Dumas, it is re- 
called, — in company with two others, made the 
attempt amid much discomfort in a private car- 
riage, — of a sort, — and Nodier wittily tells of 
how he and Hugo walked on foot up all the hills, 
each carrying his gripsack as well. 

More than all others the " Coches d'Eau " are 
especially characteristic of Paris; those fly-boats, 
whose successors ply up and down the Seine, to the 
joy of Americans, the convenience of the Parisian 
public, and — it is surely allowable to say it — 
the disgust of Londoners, now that their aged and 
decrepit " Thames steamboats " are no more. 

These early Parisian " Coches d'Eau " carried 
passengers up and down river for surprisingly low 
fares, and left the city at seven in the morning in 
summer, and eight in winter. 

The following is a list of the most important 
routes : 

Paris — Nogent-sur-Seine 2 days en route 
Paris — Briare 3 " " " 



TRUa^s anb /iDeans ot Communtcation 157 



Paris — Montereau 


I day en route 


Paris — Sens 


2 days " " 


Paris — Auxerre 


4 (( (( « 



All of these services catered for passengers and 
goods, and were, if not rapid, certainly a popular 
and comfortable means of communication. 

An even more popular journey, and one which 
partook more particularly of a pleasure-trip, was 
that of the galiote, which left each day from below 
the Pont-Royal for St. Cloud, giving a day's outing 
by river which to-day, even, is the most fascinating 
of the many petits voyages to be undertaken around 
Paris. 

The other recognized public means of communi- 
cation between the metropolis and the provincial 
towns and cities were the " Messageries Royales," 
and two other similar companies, " La Compagne 
Lafitte et Caillard " and " Les Frangaises." 

These companies put also before the Parisian 
public two other classes of vehicular accommoda- 
tion, the " pataches suspendues/' small carriages 
with but one horse, which ran between Paris and 
Strasburg, Metz, Nancy, and Lyons at the price of 
ten sous per hour. 

Again there was another means of travel which 
originated in Paris ; it was known as the " Mes- 
sageries a Cheval.'' Travellers rode on horses, 



is8 Dumas' Paris 

which were furnished by the company, their ba- 
gages being transported in advance by a '' chariot/' 
In fine weather this must certainly have been an 
agreeable and romantic mode of travel in those 
days; what would be thought of it to-day, when 
one, if he does not fly over the kilometres in a Sud 
— or Orient — Express, is as likely as not cover- 
ing the Route Nationale at sixty or more kilometres 
the hour in an automobile, it is doubtful to say. 

Finally came the famous diligence^ which to-day, 
outside the " Rollo " books and the reprints of old- 
time travel literature, is seldom met with in print. 

" These immense structures," says an observant 
French writer, " which lost sometimes their centre 
of gravity, in spite of all precaution and care on 
the part of the driver and the guard, were, by an 
Ordonnance Roy ale of the i6th of July, 1828, lim- 
ited as to their dimensions, weight, and design." 

Each diligence carried as many spare parts as 
does a modern automobile, and workshops and 
supply-depots were situated at equal distances 
along the routes. Hugo said that the complexity 
of it all represented to him " the perfect image of 
a nation; its constitution and its government. In 
the diligence was to be found, as in the state, the 
aristocracy in the coupe, the bourgeoisie in the in- 
terior, the people in la rotonde^ and, finally, ' the 



Wia^s anb /iDeans of Communication 159 

artists, the thinkers, and the unclassed' in the ut- 
most height, the imperiale, beside the condiicteur, 
who represented the law of the state. 

" This great diligence, with its body painted 
in staring yellow, and its five horses, carries one in 
a diminutive space through all the sleeping villages 
and hamlets of the countryside." 

From Paris, in 1830, the journey by diligence 
to Toulouse — 182 French leagues — took eight 
days; tO' Rouen, thirteen hours; to Lyons, pa/r 
Auxerre, four days, and to Calais, two and a half 
days. 

The diligence was certainly an energetic mode of 
travel, but not without its discomforts, particularly 
in bad weather. Prosper Merimee gave up his 
winter journey overland to Madrid in 1859, and 
took ship at Bordeaux for Alicante in Spain, be- 
cause, as he says, " all the inside places had been 
taken for a month ahead.'' 

The coming of the chemin de fer can hardly be 
dealt with here. Its advent is comparatively modern 
history, and is familiar to all. 

Paris, as might naturally be supposed, was the 
hub from which radiated the great spokes of iron 
which bound the uttermost frontiers intimately with 
the capital. 

There were three short lines of rail laid down 



i6o Bumas' Paris 

in the provinces before Paris itself took up with 
the innovation: at Roanne, St. Etienne-Andre- 
zieux, Epinac, and Alais. 

By la loi du p Juillet, 1835, a line was built from 
Paris to St. Germain, seventeen kilometres, and its 
official opening for traffic, which took place two 
years later, was celebrated by a dejeuner de cir- 
constance at the Restaurant du Pavilion Henri 
Quatre at St. Germain. 

Then came " Le Nord " to Lille, Boulogne, and 
Calais ; " L'Ouest " to Havre, Rouen, Cherbourg, 
and Brest; " L' Est '^ to Toul and Nancy; " L'Or- 
leans '* to Orleans and the Loire Valley ; and, 
finally, the "P. L. M." (Paris-Lyon et Mediter- 
ranee) to the south of France. " Then it was that 
Paris really became the rich neighbour of all the 
provincial towns and cities. Before, she had been 
a sort of pompous and distant relative " — as a 
whimsical Frenchman has put it. 

The mutability of time and the advent of mechan- 
ical traction is fast changing all things — in 
France and elsewhere. The Chevaux Blancs, Deux 
Pigeons, Cloches d'Or, and the Hotels de la Poste, 
de la Croix, and du Grand Cerf are fast disap- 
pearing from the large towns, and the way of iron 
is, or will be, a source of inspiration to the poets 
of the future, as has the postilion, the diligence. 



Wia^B ant) hearts ot Communtcatton i6i 

and the chaise de poste in the past. Here is a 
quatrain written by a despairing aubergiste of the 
little town of Salons, which indicates how the in- 
novation was received by the provincials — in spite 
of its undeniable serviceability : 

" En Tan neuf cent, machine lourde 
A tretous farfit damne et mal, 
Gens moult rioient d'icelle bourde, 
Au campas renovoient cheval." 

The railways which centre upon Paris are indeed 
the ties that bind Paris to the rest of France, and 
vice versa. Their termini — the great gares — ■ are 
at all times the very concentrated epitome of the 
life of the day. 

The new gares of the P. L. M. and the Orleans 
railways are truly splendid and palatial establish- 
ments, with — at first glance — little of the odour 
of the railway about them, and much of the cere- 
monial appointments of a great civic institution; 
with gorgeous salles a manger, waiting-rooms, and 
— bearing the P. L. M. in mind in particular — 
not a little of the aspect of an art-gallery. 

The other emharcaderes are less up-tO'-date — 
that vague term which we twentieth-century folk 
are wont to make use of in describing the latest 
innovations. The Gare St. Lazare is an enormous 



1 62 2)umas' Paris 

establishment, with a hotel appendage, which of 
itself is of great size; the Gare du Nord is equally 
imposing, but architecturally unbeautif ul ; while the 
Gare de FEst still holds in its tympanum the melan- 
choly symbolical figure of the late lamented Ville 
de Strasbourg, the companion in tears, one may say, 
of that other funereally decorated statue on the 
Place de la Concorde. 

Paris, too, is well served by her tramways pro- 
pelled by horses, — which have not yet wholly dis- 
appeared, — and by steam and electricity, applied 
in a most ingenious manner. By this means Paris 
has indeed been transformed from its interior 
thoroughfares to its uttermost banlieu. 

The last two words on the subject have reference 
to the advent and development of the bicycle and 
the automobile, as swift, safe, and economical means 
of transport. 

The reign of the bicycle as a pure fad was com- 
paratively short, whatever may have been its charm 
of infatuation. As a utile thing it is perhaps more 
worthy of consideration, for it cannot be denied 
that its development — and of its later gigantic 
offspring, the automobile — has had a great deal to 
do with the better construction and up-keep of 
modern roadways, whether urban or suburban. 

*''' La petite reine hicyclette " has been feted in 



Wia^B anb /iDeans ot Communicatton 163 

light verse many times, but no one seems to have 
hit off its saHent features as did Charles Monselet. 
Others have referred to riders of the " new means 
of locomotion " as " cads on casters/' and a writer 
in Le Gaulois stigmatized them as '' imbeciles 
a roulettes" which is much the same ; while no less 
a personage than Francisque Sarcey demanded, in 
the journal La France, that the police should sup- 
press forthwith this eccentricite. 

Charles Monselet's eight short lines are more ap- 
preciative : 

" Instrument raide 
En fer battu 
Qui depossede 
Le char torlu ; 
Velocipede 
Rail impromptu, 
Fils d'Archim^de, 
D'ou nous viens-tu ? " 

Though it is apart from the era of Dumas, this 
discursion into a phase of present-day Paris is, 
perhaps, allowable in drawing a comparison between 
the city of to-day and that even of the Second 
Empire, which was, at its height, contemporary 
with Dumas' prime. 

If Paris was blooming suddenly forth into beauty 
and grace in the period which extended from the 



i64 2)umas' Paris 

Revolution to the Franco-Prussian War, she has 
certainly, since that time, not ceased to shed her 
radiance ; indeed, she flowers more abundantly than 
ever, though, truth to tell, it is all due to the patron- 
age which the state has ever given, in France, to 
the fostering of the arts as well as industries. 

And so Paris has grown, — beautiful and great, — 
and the stranger within her gates, whether he come 
by road or rail, by automobile or railway-coach, is 
sure to be duly impressed with the fact that Paris 
is for one and all alike a city founded of and for 
the people. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



THE BANKS OF THE SEINE 

^"'■l'*' HE city of the ancient Parisii is the 
I one particular spot throughout the length 
of the sea-green Seine — that " winding 
river " whose name, says Thierry, in his " Histoire 
des Gaulois," is derived from a Celtic word hav- 
ing this signification — where is resuscitated the 
historical being of the entire French nation. 

Here it circles around the He St. Louis, cutting 
it apart from the He de la Cite, and rushing up 
against the northern bank, periodically throws up 
a mass of gravelly sand, just in the precise spot 
where, in mediaeval times, was an open market- 
place. 

Here the inhabitants of the city met the country 
dealers, who landed produce from their boats, 
traded, purchased, and sold, and departed whence 
they came, into the regions of the upper Seine or 
the Marne, or downward to the lower river cities 
of Meulan, Mantes, and Vernon. 

i6s 



i66 Bumas' pads 

At this time Paris began rapidly to grow on 
each side of the stream, and became the great market 
or trading-place where the swains who lived up- 
river mingled with the hewers of wood from the 
forests of La Brie and the reapers of corn from the 
sunny plains of La Beauce. 

These country folk, it would appear, preferred 
the northern part of Paris to the southern — it was 
less ceremonious, less ecclesiastical. If they ap- 
proached the city from rearward of the Universite, 
by the Orleans highroad, they paid exorbitant toll 
to the Abbot of St. Germain des Pres. Here they 
paid considerably less to the Prevot of Paris. And 
thus from very early times the distinction was made, 
and grew with advancing years, between the town, 
or La Ville, which distinguished it from the Cite 
and the Universite. 

This sandy river-bank gradually evolved itself into 
the Quai and Place de la Greve, — its etymology 
will not be difficult to trace, — and endured in the 
full liberty of its olden functions as late as the day 
of Louis XV. Here might have been seen great 
stacks of firewood, charcoal, corn, wine, hay, and 
straw. 

Aside from its artistic and economic value, the 
Seine plays no great part in the story of Paris. It 
does not divide what is glorious from what is sordid, 



Ube Banfis ot tbe Seine 167 

as does " London's river." When one crosses any 
one of its numerous bridges, one does not exchange 
thriftiness and subhmity for the commonpla^se. Les 
InvaHdes, L'Institut, the Luxembourg, the"^ Pan- 
theon, the Odeon, the Universite, — whose build- 
ings cluster around the ancient Sorbonne, — the 
Hotel de Cluny, and the churches of St. Sulpice, 
St. Etienne du Mont, and St. Severin, and, last but 
not least, the Chamber of Deputies, all are on the 
south side of Paris, and do not shrink greatly in 
artistic or historical importance from Notre Dame, 
the Louvre, the Tour St. Jacques, the Place de la 
Bastille, the Palais Royal, or the Theatre-Frangais. 

The greatest function of the Seine, when one 
tries to focus the memory on its past, is to recall 
to us that old Paris was a trinity. Born of the 
river itself rose the Cite, the home of the Church 
and state, scarce finding room for her palaces and 
churches, while close to her side, on the south bank, 
the Universite spread herself out, and on the right 
bank the Ville hummed with trade and became the 
home of the great municipal institutions. 

Dumas shifts the scenes of his Parisian romances 
first from one side to the other, but always his 
mediaeval Paris is the same grand, luxurious, and 
lively stage setting. Certainly no historian could 
hope to have done better. 



1 68 2)uma6' pads 

Intrigue, riot, and bloodshed of course there 
were; and perhaps it may be thought in undue 
proportions. But did not the history of Paris itself 
furnish the romancer with these very essential de- 
tails? 

At all events, there is no great sordidness or 
squalor perpetuated in Dumas' pages. Perhaps it is 
for this reason that they prove so readable, and 
their wearing qualities so great. 

There is in the reminiscence of history and the 
present aspect of the Seine, throughout its length, 
the material for the constructing a volume of bulk 
which should not lack either variety, picturesque- 
ness, or interest. It furthermore is a subject which 
seems to have been shamefully neglected by writers 
of all ranks. 

Turner, of the brilliant palette, pictured many of 
its scenes, and his touring-companion wrote a more 
or less imaginative and wofully incorrect running 
commentary on the itinerary of the journey, as he 
did also of their descent of the Loire. Philip Gil- 
bert Hamerton, accompanied by a series of charm- 
ing pictures by Joseph Pennell (the first really 
artistic topographical illustrations ever put into the 
pages of a book), did the same for the Saone; and, 
of course, the Thames has been " done " by many 
writers of all shades of ability, but manifestly the 



Ube :iBanft5 ot tbe Seine 169 

Seine, along whose banks lie the scenes of some 
of the most historic and momentous events of 
mediaeval times, has been sadly neglected. 

Paris is divided into practically two equal parts 
by the swift-flowing current of the Seine, which 
winds its way in sundry convolutions from its 
source beyond Chatillon-sur-Seine to the sea at 
Honfleur. 

The praises of the winding river which connects 
Havre, Rouen, Vernon, Mantes, and Paris has often 
been sung, but the brief, virile description of it in 
the eighty-seventh chapter of Dumas' " Le Vicomte 
de Bragelonne " has scarcely been equalled. Apro- 
pos of the journey of Madame and Buckingham 
Paris-ward, after having taken leave of the English 
fleet at Havre, Dumas says of this greatest of 
French waterways : 

" The weather was fine. Spring cast its flowers 
and its perfumed foliage upon the path. Normandy, 
with its vast variety of vegetation, its blue sky, and 
silver rivers, displayed itself in all its loveliness.'* 

Through Paris its direction is from the south- 
east to the northwest, a distance, within the forti- 
fications, of perhaps twelve kilometres. 

Two islands of size cut its currents : the He 
St. Louis and the He de la Cite. A description of 



I70 2)ttmas' Paris 

its banks, taken from a French work of the time, 
better defines its aspect immediately after the Rev- 
olution of 1848 than any amount of conjecture or 
present-day observation, so it is here given : 

" In its course through the metropolis, the Seine 
is bordered by a series of magnificent quais, which 
in turn are bordered by rows of sturdy trees. 

" The most attractive of these quais are those 
which flank the Louvre, the Tuileries, D'Orsay, Vol- 
taire, and Conti. 

" Below the quais are deposed nine ports, or 
gareSj each devoted to a special class of merchan- 
dise, as coal, wine, produce, timber, etc. 

" The north and south portions of the city are 
connected by twenty-six ponts (this was in 1852; 
others have since been erected, which are mentioned 
elsewhere in the book). 

" Coming from the upper river, they were known 
as follows : the Ponts Napoleon, de Bercy, d'Auster- 
litz, the Passer elle de I'Estacade; then, on the right 
branch of the river, around the islands, the Ponts 
Maril, Louis-Philippe, d'Arcole, Notre Dame, and 
the Pont au Change ; on the left branch, the Passer- 
elle St. Louis or Constantine, the Ponts Toumelle, 
de la Cite, de FArcheveche, le Pont aux Doubles, 
le Petit Pont, and the Pont St. Michel; here the 
two branches join again: le Pont Neuf, des Arts, 



Ube JBan?i0 ot tbe Seine 171 

du Carrousel, Royal, Solferino, de la Concorde, des 
Invalides, de I'Alma, de Jena, and Grenelle. 

" Near the Pont d'Austerlitz the Seine receives 
the waters of the petite Riviere de Bievre, or des 
Gobelins, which traverses the faubourgs." 

Of the bridges of Paris, Dumas in his romances 
has not a little to say. It were not possible for 
a romanticist — or a realist, for that matter — to 
write of Paris and not be continually confronting 
his characters with one or another of the many 
splendid bridges which cross the Seine between 
Conflans-Charenton and Asnieres. 

In the *' Mousquetaires " series, in the Valois 
romances, and in his later works of lesser import, 
mention of these fine old bridges continually recurs ; 
more than all others the Pont Neuf, perhaps, or the 
Pont au Change. 

In " Pauline " there is a charming touch which 
we may take to smack somewhat of the author's 
own predilections and experiences. He says, con- 
cerning his embarkation upon a craft which he had 
hired at a little Norman fishing-village, as one jobs 
a carriage in Paris : " I set up to be a sailor, and 
served apprenticeship on a craft between the Pont 
des Tuileries and the Pont de la Concorde." 

Of the Seine bridges none is more historic than 
the Pont Neuf, usually reckoned as one of the 



172 Dumas' parts 

finest in Europe; which recalls the fact that the 
French — ecclesiastic and laymen architects alike — 
were master bridge-builders. For proof of this one 
has only to recall the wonderful bridge of St. 
Benezet d' Avignon, the fortified bridges of Orthos 
and Cahors, the bridge at Lyons, built by the 
Primate of Gaul himself, and many others through- 
out the length and breadth of France. 

The Pont Neuf was commenced in the reign of 
Henri III. (1578), and finished in the reign of 
Henri IV. (1604), and is composed of two un- 
equal parts, which come to their juncture at the 
extremity of the He de la Cite. 

In the early years a great bronze horse, known 
familiarly as the " Cheval de Bronze," but with- 
out a rider, was placed upon this bridge. During 
the Revolution, when cannon and ammunition were 
made out of any metal which could be obtained, 
this curious statue disappeared, though later its 
pedestal was replaced — under the Bourbons — 
by an equestrian statue of the Huguenot king. 

The Pont des Arts, while not usually accredited 
as a beautiful structure, — and certainly not com- 
parable with many other of its fellows, — is inter- 
esting by reason of the fact that its nine iron arches, 
which led from the Quai du Louvre to the Quai 
de la Monnai, formed the first example of an iron 



Ubc JSanfes ot tbe Seine 173 

bridge ever constructed in France. Its nomen- 
clature is derived from the Louvre, which was then 
called — before the title was applied to the College 
des Quatre Nations — the Palais des Arts. In 
Restoration times it was one of the fashionable 
promenades of Paris. 

The Pont au Change took its name from the 
changeurs, or money-brokers, who lived upon it 
during the reign of Louis le Jeune in 1141. It 
bridged the widest part of the Seine, and, after 
being destroyed by flood and fire in 1408, 16 16, and 
1 62 1, was rebuilt in 1647. The houses which orig- 
inally covered it were removed in 1788 by the order 
of Louis XVI. In " The Conspirators," Dumas 
places the opening scene at that end of the Pont 
Neuf which abuts on the Quai de I'ficole, and is 
precise enough, but in " Marguerite de Valois " he 
evidently confounds the Pont Neuf with the Pont 
au Change, when he puts into the mouth of Co- 
connas, the Piedmontese : " They who rob on the 
Pont Neuf are, then, like you, in the service of the 
king. Mordi! I have been very unjust, sir; for 
until now I had taken them for thieves." 

The Pont Louis XV. was built in 1787 out of 
part of the material which was taken from the ruins 
of the Bastille. 

Latterly there has sprung up the new Pont Alex- 



174 2)umas' parts 

andre, commemorative oi the Czar's visit to Paris, 
which for magnificent proportions, beauty of de- 
sign and arrangement, quite overtops any other of 
its kind, in Paris or elsewhere. 

The quais which hne the Seine as it runs through 
Paris are Hke no other quais in the known world. 
They are the very essence and epitome of certain 
phases of life which find no counterpart else- 
where. 

The following description of a bibliomaniac from 
Dumas' " Memoires " is unique and apropos : 

" Bibliomaniac, evolved from book and mania, is 
a variety of the species man — species bipes et genus 
homo. 

" This animal has two feet and is without features, 
and usually wanders about the quais and boule- 
vards, stopping in front of every stall and finger- 
ing all the books. He is generally dressed in a 
coat which is too long and trousers which are too 
short, his shoes are always down at heel, and on 
his head is an ill-shapen hat. One of the signs by 
which he may be recognized is shown by the fact 
that he never washes his hands." 

The booksellers' stalls of the quais of Paris are 
famous, though it is doubtful if genuine bargains 
exist there In great numbers. It is significant, 
however, that more volumes of Dumas' romances 



Ubc Banks of tbe Seine 17s 

are offered for sale — so it seems to the passer-by 
— than of any other author. 

The Seine opposite the Louvre, and, indeed, 
throughout the length of its flow through Paris, 
enters largely into the scheme of the romances, 
where scenes are laid in the metropolis. 

Like the throng which stormed the walls of the 
Louvre on the night of the i8th of August, 1527, 
during that splendid royal fete, the account of 
which opens the pages of " Marguerite de Valois," 
the Seine itself resembles Dumas' description of 
the midnight crowd, which he likens to " a dark 
and rolling sea, each swell of which increases to a 
foaming wave; this sea, extending all along the 
quai, spent its waves at the base of the Louvre, on 
the one hand, and against the Hotel de Bourbon, 
which was opposite, on the other.'* 

In the chapter entitled " What Happened on the 
Night of the Twelfth of July," in " The Taking 
of the Bastille," Dumas writes of the banks of the 
Seine in this wise: 

" Once upon the quai, the two countrymen saw 
glittering on the bridge near the Tuileries the arms 
of another body of men, which, in all probability, 
was not a body of friends; they silently glided to 
the end of the quai, and descended the bank which 



176 DumaB' parts 

leads along the Seine. The clock of the Tuileries 
was just then striking eleven. 

" When they had got beneath the trees which 
line the banks of the river, fine aspen-trees and 
poplars, which bathe their feet in its current, when 
they were lost to the sight of their pursuers, hid by 
their friendly foliage, the farmers and Pitou threw 
themselves on the grass and opened a council of 
war." 

Just previously the mob had battered down the 
gate of the Tuileries, as a means of escape from the 
pen in which the dragoons had crowded the popu- 
lace. 

" * Tell me now. Father Billot,' inquired Pitou, 
after having carried the timber some thirty yards, 
* are we going far in this way ? ' 

" * We are going as far as the gate of the Tuile- 
ries.' 

" ' Ho, ho ! ' cried the crowd, who at once divined 
his intention. 

" And it made way for them more eagerly even 
than before. 

" Pitou looked about him, and saw that the gate 
was not more than thirty paces distant from them. 

" * I can reach it,' said he, with the brevity of 
a Pythagorean. 

" The labour was so much the easier to Pitou 



XTbe JBanfts ot tbe Seine 177 

from five or six of the strongest of the crowd taking 
their share of the burden. 

" The result of this was a very notable accelera- 
tion in their progress. 

" In five minutes they had reached the iron gates. 

" * Come, now/ cried Billot, ' clap your shoulders 
to it, and all push together.' 

" * Good ! ' said Pitou. * I understand now. We 
have just made a warlike engine; the Romans used 
to call it a ram.' 

" * Now, my boys,' cried Billot, * once, twice, 
thrice,' and the joist, directed with a furious im- 
petus, struck the lock of the gate with resounding 
violence. 

" The soldiers who were on guard in the In- 
terior of the garden hastened to resist this invasion. 
But at the third stroke the gate gave way, turning 
violently on its hinges, and through that gaping and 
gloomy mouth the crowd rushed impetuously. 

" From the movement that was then made, the 
Prince de Lambesq perceived at once that an open- 
ing had been effected which allowed the escape of 
those whom he had considered his prisoners. He 
was furious with disappointment." 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE SECOND EMPIRE AND AFTER 

rHE Revolution of 1848 narrowed itself 
down to the issue of Bourbonism or 
Bonapartism. Nobody had a good word 
to say for the constitution, and all parties took 
liberties with it. It was inaugurated as the most 
democratic of all possible charters. It gave a vote 
to everybody, women and children excepted. It 
affirmed liberty with so wide a latitude of inter- 
pretation as to leave nothing to be desired by the 
reddest Republican that ever wore pistols in his 
belt at the heels of the redoubtable M. Marc Caus- 
sidiere, or expressed faith in the social Utopia of 
the enthusiastic M. Proudhon. Freedom to speak, 
to write, to assemble, and to vote, — all were se- 
cured to all Frenchmen by this marvellous charter. 
When it became the law of the land, everybody 
began to nibble at and destroy it. The right of 
speaking was speedily reduced to the narrowest 

178 



Zbc Secon^ Bmplte anb Httet 179 

limits, and the liberty of the press was pared down 
to the merest shred. The right of meeting was 
placed at the tender mercies of the prefect of police, 
and the right of voting was attacked with even 
more zeal and fervour. The Revolution proved 
more voracious than Saturn himself, in devouring 
its children, and it made short work of men and 
reputations. It reduced MM. de Lamartine, Armand 
Marrast, and General Cavaignac into nothingness; 
sent MM. Louis Blanc, Ledru Rollin, and Caus- 
sidiere into the dreary exile of London, and con- 
signed the fiery Barbes, the vindictive Blanqui, the 
impatient Raspail, and a host of other regenerators 
of the human race, to the fastnesses of Vincennes. 
Having done this, the Revolution left scarcely a 
vestige of the constitution, — nothing but a few 
crumbs, and those were not crumbs of comfort, 
which remained merely to prove to the incredulous 
that such a thing as the constitution once existed. 
The former king and queen took hidden refuge 
in a small cottage at Honfleur, whence they were 
to depart a few days later for England — ever a 
refuge for exiled monarchists. Escape became very 
urgent, and the king, with an English passport in 
the name of William Smith, and the queen as 
Madame Lebrun, crossed over to Le Havre and 
ultimately to England. Lamartine evidently mis- 



i8o 5)ttmas' Paris 

takes even the time and place of this incident, but 
newspaper accounts of the time, both French and 
EngHsh, are very full as to the details. On land- 
ing at the quai at Le Havre, the ex-royal party v^as 
conducted to the " Express '' steam-packet, which 
had been placed at their disposal for the cross-chan- 
nel journey. Dumas takes the very incident as a 
detail for his story of " Pauline," and his treat- 
ment thereof does not differ greatly from the facts 
as above set forth. Two years later (August 26, 
1850), at Claremont, in Surrey, in the presence of 
the queen and several members of his family, Louis- 
Philippe died. He was the last of the Bourbons, with 
whom Dumas proudly claimed acquaintanceship, 
and as such, only a short time before, was one of 
the mightiest of the world's monarchs, standing on 
one of the loftiest pinnacles of an ambition which, 
in the mind of a stronger or more wilful person- 
ality, might have accomplished with success much 
that with him resulted in defeat. 

After the maelstrom of discontent — the Revo- 
lution of 1848 — had settled down, there came a 
series of events well-nigh as disturbing. Events 
in Paris were rapidly ripening for a change. The 
known determination of Louis Napoleon to prolong 
his power, either as president for another term of 
four years, or for life, or as consul or emperor of 



Ube Seconb jBrnpire anb Httet iSi 

the French, and the support which his pretensions 
received from large masses of the people and from 
the rank and file of the army, had brought him into 
collision with a rival — General Changarnier — al- 
most as powerful as himself, and with an ambition 
quite as daring as his own. 

What Louis Napoleon wanted was evident. There 
was no secret about his designs. The partisans 
of Henri V. looked to Changarnier for the restora- 
tion of peace and legitimacy, and the Orleanists 
considered that he was the most likely man in 
France to bring back the house of Orleans, and 
the comfortable days of bribery, corruption, and a 
thriving trade; while the fat bourgeoisie venerated 
him as the unflinching foe of the disturbers of 
order, and the great bulwark against Communism 
and the Red Republic. 

Still, this was manifestly not to be, though no 
one seemed to care a straw about Louis Napoleon's 
republic, or whether or no he dared to declare him- 
self king or emperor, or whether they should be 
ruled by Bonapartist, Bourbon, or Orleanist. 

These were truly perilous times for France ; and, 
though they did not culminate in disaster until 
twenty years after, Louis Napoleon availed himself 
of every opportunity to efface from the Second 
Republic, of which he was at this time the head, 



iS2 Bumas' lC>aris 

every vestige of the democratic features which it 
ought to have borne. 

At the same time he surrounded himself with 
imposing state and pomp, so regal in character 
that it was evidently intended to accustom the pub- 
lic to see in him the object of that homage which 
is usually reserved for crowned heads alone, and 
thus gradually and imperceptibly to prepare the 
nation to witness, without surprise, his assuming, 
when the favourable occasion offered, the purple 
and diadem of the empire. 

For instance, he took up his residence in the 
ancient palace of the sovereigns of France, the 
Tuileries, and gave banquets and balls of regal 
magnificence; he ordered his effigy to be struck 
upon the coinage of the nation, surrounded by the 
words " Louis Napoleon Bonaparte," without any 
title, whether as president or otherwise, being 
affixed. He restored the imperial eagles to the 
standards of the army; the official organ, the 
Moniteur, recommended the restoration of the titles 
and orders of hereditary nobility; the trees of lib- 
erty were uprooted everywhere; the Republican 
motto, " Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," was erased 
from the public edifices; the colossal statue of 
Liberty, surmounted by a Phrygian cap, which 
stood in the centre of the Place de Bourgogne, 



XTbe Secont) Bmptre anb Htter 183 

behind the Legislative Assembly, was demolished; 
and the old anti-Republican names of the streets 
were restored, so that the Palais National again 
became the Palais Royal ; the Theatre de la Nation, 
the Theatre Frangais ; the Rue de la Concorde, the 
Rue Royal, etc.; and, in short, to all appearances, 
Louis Napoleon began early in his tenure of office 
to assiduously pave the way to the throne of the 
empire as Napoleon III. 

The London Times correspondent of that day 
related a characteristic exercise of this sweeping 
instruction of the Minister of the Interior to erase 
the words " Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite " from all 
public buildings. (The three revolutionary watch- 
words had, in fact, been erased the previous year 
from the principal entrance to the Elysee, and the 
words " Republique Frangaise," in large letters, 
were substituted.) 

" There is, I believe, only one public monument 
in Paris — the Ecole de Droit — where the work- 
men employed in effacing that inscription will have 
a double duty. They will have to interfere with the 
* Liberalism ' of two generations. Immediately 
under the coat of yellow paint which covered the 
fagade of the building, and on which time and 
the inclemency of the seasons have done their work, 
may still be traced, above the modern device, the 



i84 Dumas' iparis 

following words, inscribed by order of the Com- 
mune of Paris during the Reign of Terror : * Lib- 
erte, Egalite, Fraternite, Unite, Indivisibilite de la 
Republique Frangaise ! ' As the effacing of the in- 
scription of 1848 is not now by means of white- 
wash or paint, but by erasure, both the inscriptions 
will disappear at the same moment." 

Among the most important demolitions and reno- 
vations of the sixties was the work undertaken on 
the Louvre at the orders of the ambitious emperor, 
Napoleon III. The structure was cloven to the 
foundations, through the slated roof, the gilded and 
painted ceiling, the parqueted floors; and, where 
one formerly enjoyed an artistic feast that had 
taken four centuries tO' provide, one gazed upon, 
from the pavement to the roof, a tarpaulin that 
closed a vista which might otherwise have been a 
quarter of a mile in length. 

Builders toiled day and night to connect the 
Louvre with the main body of the Palace of the 
Tuileries, which itself was to disappear within so 
short a time. Meanwhile so great a displacement 
of the art treasures was undergone, that habitues 
knew not which way to turn for favourite pictures, 
with which the last fifty years had made them so 
familiar. 

To those of our elders who knew the Paris of 



XTfoe 5econ^ Bmptre anb Httet 185 

the early fifties, the present-day aspect — in spite of 
all its glorious wealth of boulevards and architec- 
tural splendour — will suggest the mutability of all 
things. 

It serves our purpose, however, to realize that 
much of the character has gone from the Quartier 
Latin; that the Tuileries disappeared with the 
Commune, and that the old distinctions between 
Old Paris, the faubourgs, and the Communal 
Annexes, have become practically non-existent with 
the opening up of the Haussman boulevards, at the 
instigation of the wary Napoleon III. Paris is still, 
however, an *' ancienne ville et une ville neuve*' 
and the paradox is inexplicable. 

The differences between the past and the present 
are indeed great, but nowhere — not even in the 
Tower of London, which is usually given as an 
example of the contrast and progress of the ages — 
is a more tangible and specific opposition shown, 
than in what remains to-day of mediaeval Paris, in 
juxtaposition with the later architectural embellish- 
ments. In many instances is seen the newest of 
the *''' art nouveau " — as it is popularly known — 
cheek by jowl with some mediaeval shrine. 

It is difficult at this time to say what effect these 
swirls and blobs, which are daily thrusting them- 
selves into every form of architectural display 



i86 H)umas' parts 

throughout Continental Europe, would have had on 
these masters who built the Gothic splendours of 
France, or even the hybrid rococo style, which, be 
it not denied, is in many instances beautiful in spite 
of its idiosyncrasies. 

To those who are familiar with the " sights " of 
Paris, there is nothing left but to study the aspects 
of the life of the streets, the boulevards, the quais, 
the gardens, the restaurants, and the cafes. Here 
at least is to be found daily, and hourly, new sen- 
sations and old ones, but at all events it is an 
ever-shifting scene, such as no other city in the 
world knows. 

The life of the faubourgs and of the quartiers 
has ever been made the special province of artists 
and authors, and to wander through them, to sit 
beneath the trees of the squares and gardens, or 
even outside a cafe, is to contemplate, in no small 
degree, much of the incident and temperament of 
life which others have already perpetuated and 
made famous. 

There is little new or original effort which can 
be made, though once and again a new performer 
comes upon the stage, — a poet who sings songs of 
vagabondage, a painter who catches a fleeting im- 
pression, which at least, if not new, seems new. 



Ubc Seconb Bmptre auD Httet 187 

But in the main one has to hark back to former 
generations, if one would feel the real spirit of 
romance and tradition. There are few who, like 
Monet, can stop before a shrine and see in it forty- 
three varying moods — or some other incredible 
number, as did that artist when he limned his im- 
pressions of the facade of the Cathedral of Notre 
Dame de Rouen. 

Such landmarks as the Place de la Bastille, the 
Pantheon, — anciently the site of the Abbey de Ste. 
Genevieve, — ■ the Chambre des Deputes, — the 
former Palais Bourbon, — the Tour St. Jacques, 
the Fountain des Innocents, St. Germain I'Auxer- 
rois, the Palais du Luxembourg, the Louvre, and 
quite all the historic and notable buildings one sees, 
are all pictured with fidelity, and more or less 
minuteness, in the pages of Dumas' romances. 

Again, in such other localities as the Boulevard 
des Italiens, the Cafe de Paris, the Theatre Fran- 
gais, the Odeon, the Palais Royal, — where, in the 
" Orleans Bureau," Dumas found his first occupa- 
tion in Paris, — took place many incidents of 
Dumas' life, which are of personal import. 

For recollections and reminders of the author's 
contemporaries, there are countless other localities 
too numerous to mention. In the Rue Pigalle, at 
No. 12, died Eugene Scribe; in the Rue de Douai 



i88 Dumas' parts 

lived Edmond About, while in the Rue d' Amster- 
dam, at No. yy^ lived Dumas himself, and in the 
Rue St. Lazare, Madame George Sand. Mont- 
martre is sacred to the name of Zola in the minds 
of most readers of latter-day French fiction, while 
many more famous names of all ranks, of litter- 
ateurs, of actors, of artists and statesmen, — all 
contemporaries and many of them friends of Dumas, 
— will be found on the tombstones of Pere la 
Chaise. 

The motive, then, to be deduced from these pages 
is that they are a record of many things associated 
with Alexandre Dumas, his life, and his work. 
Equally so is a fleeting itinerary of strolls around 
and about the Paris of Dumas* romances, with 
occasional journeys into the provinces. 

Thus the centuries have done their work of ex- 
tending and mingling, — ''*' le jeu est fait" so to 
speak, — but Paris, by the necessities of her growth 
and by her rather general devotion to one stately, 
towering form of domestic architecture, has often 
made the separation of old from new peculiarly 
difficult to a casual eye. It is indeed her way to 
be new and splendid, to be always the bride of 
cities, espousing human destiny. And, truly, it is 
in this character that we do her homage with our 
visits, our money, and our admiration. Out of 






77 Rue d'Amsterdam 




TLbc Second JEmpire anb Httet 189 

gray, unwieldy, distributed London one flies from a 
vast and romantic camp to a city exact and beauti- 
ful. So exact, so beautiful, so consistent in her 
vivacity, so neat in her industry, so splendid in her 
display, that one comes to think that the ultimate 
way to enjoy Paris is to pass unquestioning and 
unsolicitous into her life, exclaiming not " Look 
here," and " Look there " in a fever of sight- 
seeing, but rather baring one's breast, like Daudet's 
oiivrier, to her assaults of glistening life. 

The Paris of to-day is a reconstructed Paris ; its 
old splendours not wholly eradicated, but changed 
in all but their associations. The life of Paris, 
too, has undergone a similar evolution, from what 
it was even in Dumas' time. 

The celebrities of the Cafe de Paris have mostly, 
if not quite all, passed away. No more does the 
eccentric Prince Demidoff promulgate his eccen- 
tricities into the very faces of the onlookers; no 
more does the great Dumas make omelettes in 
golden sugar-bowls ; and no more does he pass his 
criticisms — or was it encomiums ? — on the veau 
saute. 

The student revels of the quartier have become 
more sedate, if not more fastidious, and there is 
no such Mardi Gras and Mi-Car§me festivities as 



I90 Dumas' Paris 

used to hold forth on the boulevards in the forties. 
And on the Buttes Chaumont and Montmartre are 
found batteries of questionable amusements, — es- 
pecially got up for the delectation of les Anglais, 
provincials, and soldiers off duty, — in place of the 
cabarets, which, if of doubtful morality, were at 
least a certain social factor. 

New bridges span the Seine, and new thorough- 
fares, from humble alleys to lordly and magnificent 
boulevards, have clarified many a slum, and bright- 
ened and sweetened the atmosphere; so' there is 
some considerable gain there. 

The Parisian cabby is, as he always was, a devil- 
may-care sort of a fellow, who would as soon run 
you down with his sorry old outfit as not; but 
perhaps even his characteristics will change sooner 
or later, now that the automobile is upon us in all 
its proclaimed perfection. 

The " New Opera," that sumptuous structure 
which bears the inscription " Academic Nationale de 
Musique," begun by Garnier in 1861, and completed 
a dozen years later, is, in its commanding situation 
and splendid appointments, the peer of any other 
in the world. In spite of this, its fame will hardly 
rival that of the Comedie Franqaise, or even the 
Opera Comique of former days, and the names of 
latter-day stars will have difficulty in competing 



Ube Scconb Bmptte an^ Htter 191 

with those of Rachel, Talma, and their fellow actors 
on the stage of other days. 

Whom, if you please, have we to-day whose name 
and fame is as wide as those just mentioned ? None, 
save Madame Bernhardt, who suggests to the well- 
informed person — who is a very considerable body 
— the preeminent influences which formerly em- 
anated from Paris in the fifties. But this of itself 
is a subject too vast for inclusion here, and it were 
better passed by. So, too, with the Parisian artists 
who made the art of the world in the latter half of 
the nineteenth century. Decamps, Delacroix, Corot, 
and Vernet are names with which to conjure up 
reminiscences as great as those of Rubens, Titian, 
and Van Dyke. This may be disputed, but, if one 
were given the same familiarity therewith, it is 
possible that one's contrary opinion would be greatly 
modified. 

To-day, in addition to the glorious art collection 
of former times, there are the splendid, though ever 
shifting, collections of the Musee du Luxembourg, 
the mural paintings of the Hotel de Ville, which 
are a gallery in themselves, and the two spring 
Salon exhibitions, to say nothing of the newly at- 
tempted Salon d'Automne. Curiously enough, some 
of us find great pleasure in the contemplation of 
the decorations in the interiors of the great gares 



192 2)umas' ©arts 

of the Lyons or the Orleans railways. Certainly 
these last examples of applied art are of a lavish- 
ness — and even excellence — which a former gen- 
eration would not have thought of. 

The Arc de Triomphe d'fitoile, of course, remains 
as it always has since its erection at the instigation 
of Napoleon I. ; while the Bois de Boulogne came 
into existence as a municipal pleasure-ground only 
in the early fifties, and has since endured as the 
great open-air attraction of Paris for those who 
did not wish to go farther afield. 

The churches have not changed greatly in all this 
time, except that they had some narrow escapes 
during the Franco-Prussian War, and still narrower 
ones during the Commune. It may be remarked 
here en passant that, for the first time in seventy 
years, so say the records, there has just been taken 
down the scaffolding which, in one part or another, 
has surrounded the church of St. Eustache. Here, 
then, is something tangible which has not changed 
until recently (March, 1904), since the days when 
Dumas first came to Paris. 

The Paris of the nineteenth century is, as might 
naturally be inferred, that of which the most is 
known; the eighteenth and seventeenth are indeed 
difficult to follow with accuracy as to the exact 
locale of their events; but the sixteenth looms up 



Ube Secont) Bmptre anb Httet 193 

— curiously enough — more plainly than either of 
the two centuries which followed. The histories, 
and even the guide-books, will explain why this is 
so, so it shall have no place here. 

Order, of a sort, immediately came forth from 
out the chaos of the Revolution. The great Napo- 
leon began the process, and, in a way, it was con- 
tinued by the plebeian Louis-Philippe, elaborated 
in the Second Empire, and perfected — if a great 
capital such as Paris ever really is perfected — 
under the Third Republic. 

Improvement and demolition — which is not 
always improvement — still go on, and such of 
Old Paris as is not preserved by special effort is 
fast falling before the stride of progress. 

A body was organized in 1897, under the name 
of the '' Commission du Vieux Paris" which is 
expected to do much good work in the preservation 
of the chronicles in stone of days long past. 

The very streets are noisy with the echo of an 
unpeaceful past; and their frequent and unexpected 
turnings, even in these modern days, are suggestive 
of their history in a most graphic manner. 

The square in front of the Fontaine des Inno- 
cents is but an ancient burial-ground; before the 
Hotel de Ville came Etienne Marcel; and Charle- 
magne to the cathedral; the Place de la Concorde 



194 2)ttmas' Paris 

was the death-bed of the Girondins, and the Place 
de la Madeleine the tomb of the Capetians; and 
thus it is that Paris — as does no other city — 
mingles its centuries of strife amid a life which is 
known as the most vigorous and varied of its age. 

To enter here into a detailed comparison between 
the charm of Paris of to-day and yesterday would 
indeed be a work of supererogation; and only in 
so far as it bears directly upon the scenes and inci- 
dents amid which Dumas lived is it so made. 



CHAPTER X. 



LA VILLE 



/T would be impossible to form a precise 
topographical itinerary of the scenes of 
Dumas' romances and the wanderings of 
his characters, even in Paris itself. The area is 
so very wide, and the number of localities, which 
have more than an incidental interest, so very great, 
that the futility of such a task will at once be 
apparent. 

Probably the most prominent of all the romances, 
so far as identifying the scenes of their action goes, 
are the Valois series. 

As we know, Dumas was very fond of the ro- 
mantic house of Valois, and, whether in town or 
country, he seemed to take an especial pride in pre- 
senting details of portraiture and place in a sur- 
prisingly complete, though not superfluous, manner. 

The Louvre has the most intimate connection with 
both the Valois and the D'Artagnan romances, and 
is treated elsewhere as a chapter by itself. 

195 



196 Dumas' parts 

Dumas' most marked reference to the Hotel de 
Ville is found in the taking of the Bastille, and, 
though it is not so very great, he gives prominence 
to the incident of the deputation of the people who 
waited upon De Flesselles, the prevot, just before 
the march upon the Bastille. 

In history we know the same individual as " Mes- 
sire Jacques de Flesselles, Chevalier, Conseiller de 
la Grande Chambre, Maitre Honoraire des Requetes, 
Conseiller d'Etat." The anecdote is recorded in 
history, too, that Louis XVL, when he visited the 
Hotel de Ville in 1789, was presented with a cock- 
ade of blue and red, the colours of the ville — the 
white was not added till some days later. 

" Voire Majeste" dit le maire, " veut-elle accepte 
le signe distinctif des Frangaisf 

For reply the king took the cockade and put it on 
his chapeau, entered the grande salle, and took his 
place on the throne. 

All the broils and turmoils which have taken place 
since the great Revolution, have likewise had the 
Hotel de Ville for the theatre where their first 
scenes were represented. 

It was invaded by the people during the Revolu- 
tions of 1830 and 1848, as well as in the Commune 
in 1 87 1, when, in addition to the human fury, it 
was attacked by the flames, which finally brought 



Xa tDille 197 

about its destruction. Thus perished that noble 
structure, which owed its inception to that art- 
loving monarch, Frangois I. 

The present-day Quai de I'Hotel de Ville is the 
successor of the Quai des Ormes, which dates from 
the fourteenth century, and the Quai de la Greve, 
which existed as early as 1254, and which descended 
by an easy slope to the strand from which it took 
its name. 

Adjoining the quai was the Place de la Greve, 
which approximates the present Place de I'Hotel de 
Ville. 

A near neighbour of the Hotel de Ville is the 
Tour de St. Jacques la Boucherie, where sits to-day 
Paris's clerk of the weather. 

It was here that Marguerite de Valois, in com- 
pany with the Duchesse de Nevers, repaired from 
their pilgrimage to the Cimetiere des Innocents, to 
view the results of the Huguenot massacre of the 
preceding night. 

" ' And where are you two going ? ' inquired 
Catherine, the queen's mother. * To see some rare 
and curious Greek books found at an old Protestant 
pastor's, and which have been taken to the Tour 
de St. Jacques la Boucherie.' replied the inquisitive 
and erudite Marguerite. For, be it recalled, her 



19S H^umas' pads 

knowledge and liking of classical literature was 
most profound. '* 

This fine Gothic tower, which is still a notable 
landmark, is the only relique of the Church of St. 
Jacques. A bull of Pope Calixtus II., dated 11 19, 
first makes mention of it, and Francois I. made it 
a royal parish church. 

The tower itself was not built until 1508, having 
alone cost 1,350 livres. It has often been pictured 
and painted, and to-day it is a willing or unwilling 
sitter to most snap-shot camerists who come within 
focus of it, but no one has perceived the spirit of 
its genuine old-time flavour as did Meryon, in his 
wonderful etching — so sought for by collectors — 
called " Le Stryge.'^ 

The artist's view-point, taken from the gallery 
of Notre Dame, — though in the early nineteenth 
century, — with the grotesque head and shoulders 
of one of those monstrous figures, half-man, half- 
beast, with which the galleries of Notre Dame are 
peopled, preserves, with its very simplicity and 
directness, an impression of Vieux Paris which is 
impossible to duplicate to-day. 

The Place de la Greve was for a time, at least, 
the most famous or infamous of all the places of 
execution in Paris. One reads of it largely in 
" Marguerite de Valois " in this connection, and 



A 




TOUR DE ST. JACQUES LA BOUCHERIE 

(Meryon's Etching, " Le Stryge ") 



%a Dille 199 

in " Le Vicomte de Bragelonne " it again crops up, 
but in a much more pleasant manner. 

Dumas, ever praiseful of good wine and good 
food, describes Vatel, the mattre d' hotel of 
Fouquet, as crossing the square with a hamper 
filled with bottles, which he had just purchased 
at the cabaret of the sign of " L'Image de Notre 
Dame;" a queer name for a wine-shop, no doubt, 
and, though it does not exist to-day, and so can- 
not be authenticated, it may likely enough have 
had an existence outside the novelist's page. At 
all events, it is placed definitely enough, as one 
learns from the chapter of " Le Vicomte de Brage- 
lonne," entitled " The Wine of M. de la Fontaine." 

" * What the devil are you doing here, Vatel ? ' 
said Fouquet. * Are you buying wine at a cabaret 
in the Place de Greve ?'...*! have found here, 
monsieur, a '' vin de Joigny " which your friends 
like. This I know, as they come once a week to 
drink it at the " Image de Notre Dame." ' " 

In the following chapter Dumas reverts to the 
inglorious aspect of the Place and the Quai de 
la Greve as follows : 

" At two o'clock the next day, fifty thousand 
spectators had taken their position upon the place, 
around two gibbets which had been elevated between 
the Quai de la Greve and Quai Pelletier; one close 



200 Juntas' Paris 

to the other, with their backs to the parapet of the 
river. In the morning, also, all the sworn criers 
of the good city of Paris had traversed the quarters 
of the city, particularly the Halles and the fau- 
bourgs, announcing with their hoarse and inde- 
fatigable voices the great justice done by the king 
upon two peculators; two thieves, devourers of the 
people. And these people, whose interests were so 
warmly looked after, in order not to fail in respect 
for their king, quitted shops, stalls, and ateliers, 
to go and evince a little gratitude to Louis XIV., 
absolutely like invited guests, who feared to commit 
an impoliteness in not repairing to the house of him 
who invited them. According to the tenor of the 
sentence, which the criers read loudly and badly, 
two farmers of the revenues, monopolists of money, 
dilapidators of the royal provisions, extortioners 
and forgers, were about to undergo capital punish- 
ment on the Place de Greve, with their names 
affixed over their heads, according to their sentence. 
As to those names, the sentence made no mention 
of them. The curiosity of the Parisians was at its 
height, and, as we have said, an immense crowd 
waited with feverish impatience the hour fixed for 
the execution." 

D'Artagnan, who, in the pages of " Le Vicomte 
de Bragelonne," was no more a young man, owned 



Xa Dille 20I 

this very cabaret, the '' Image de Notre Dame." 
" * I will go, then,' says he, * to the '' Image de 
Notre Dame," and drink a glass of Spanish wine 
with my tenant, which he cannot fail to offer me/ " 

En route to the cabaret, D'Artagnan asked of his 
companion, "Is there a procession to-day?" ** It 
is a hanging, monsieur." " What ! a hanging on 
the Greve? The devil take the rogue who gets 
himself hung the day I go to take my rent," said 
D'Artagnan. 

The old mousquetaire did not get his rent, there 
was riot and bloodshed galore, " L'Image de Notre 
Dame " was set on fire, and D'Artagnan had one 
more opportunity to cry out *''' A moi, Mousque- 
taires" and enter into a first-class fight; all, of 
course, on behalf of right and justice, for he saved 
two men, destined to be gibbeted, from the more 
frightful death of torture by fire, to which the 
fanatical crowd had condemned them. 

The most extensive reference to the Place de la 
Greve is undoubtedly in the " Forty-Five Guards- 
men," where is described the execution of Salcede, 
the coiner of false money and the co-conspirator 
with the Guises. 

" M. Friard was right when he talked of one 
hundred thousand persons as the number of specta- 
tors who would meet on the Place de la Greve and 



202 Dumas' parts 

its environs, to witness the execution of Salcede. 
All Paris appeared to have a rendezvous at the Hotel 
de Ville; and Paris is very exact, and never misses 
a fete; and the death of a man is a fete, especially 
when he has raised so many passions that some 
curse and others bless him. 

" The spectators who succeeded in reaching the 
place saw the archers and a large number of Swiss 
and light horse surrounding a little scaffold raised 
about four feet from the ground. It was so low as 
to be visible only to those immediately surrounding 
it, or to those who had windows overlooking the 
place. Four vigorous white horses beat the ground 
impatiently with their hoofs, to the great terror 
of the women, who had either chosen this place 
willingly, or had been forcibly pushed there. 

" These horses were unused, and had never done 
more work than to support, by some chance, on their 
broad backs, the chubby children of the peasants. 
After the scaffold and the horses, what next attracted 
all looks was the principal window of the Hotel 
de Ville, which was hung with red velvet and gold, 
and ornamented with the royal arms. This was for 
the king. Half -past one had just struck when this 
window was filled. First came Henri IH., pale, 
almost bald, although he was at that time only 
thirty-five, and with a sombre expression, always a 



Xa mile 203 

mystery to his subjects, who, when they saw him 
appear, never knew whether to say ' Vive le roi! ' 
or to pray for his soul. He was dressed in black, 
without jewels or orders, and a single diamond shone 
in his cap, serving as a fastening to three short 
plumes. He carried in his hand a little black dog 
that his sister-in-law, Marie Stuart, had sent him 
from her prison, and on which his fingers looked 
as white as alabaster. 

" Behind the king came Catherine de Medici, 
almost bowed by age, for she might be sixty-six 
or sixty-seven, but still carrying her head firm and 
erect, and darting bitter glances from under her 
thick eyebrows. At her side appeared the melan- 
choly but sweet face of the queen, Louise de Tou- 
raine. Catherine came as a triumph, she as a pun- 
ishment. Behind them came two handsome young 
men, brothers, the eldest of whom smiled with won- 
derful beauty, and the younger with great melan- 
choly. The one was Anne, Due de Joyeuse, and the 
other Henri de Joyeuse, Comte de Bouchage. The 
people had for these favourites of the king none of 
the hatred which they had felt toward Maugiron, 
Quelus, and Schomberg. 

" Henri saluted the people gravely ; then, turn- 
ing to the young men, he said, * Anne, lean against 
the tapestry ; it may last a long time.' . . . 



2 04 ©umas' Paris 

" Henri, in anger, gave the sign. It was re- 
peated, the cords were refastened, four men jumped 
on the horses, which, urged by violent blows, started 
off in opposite directions. A horrible cracking and 
a terrible cry was heard. The blood was seen to 
spout from the limbs of the unhappy man, whose 
face was no longer that of a man, but of a demon. 

" * Ah, heaven ! ' he cried ; ' I will speak, I will 
tell all. Ah ! cursed duch — ' 

" The voice had been heard above everything, 
but suddenly it ceased. 

" * Stop, stop,' cried Catherine, ' let him speak.' 

" But it was too late ; the head of Salcede fell 
helplessly on one side, he glanced once more to 
where he had seen the page, and then expired.'' 

Near the Hotel de Ville is " Le Chatelet," a name 
familiar enough to travellers about Paris. It is 
an omnibus centre, a station on the new " Metro- 
politain," and its name has been given to one of 
the most modern theatres of Paris. 

Dumas, in " Le Collier de la Reine," makes 
but little use of the old Prison du Grand Chatelet, 
but he does not ignore it altogether, which seems 
to point to the fact that he has neglected very few 
historic buildings, or, for that matter, incidents of 



%a IDille 205 

Paris in mediaeval times, in compiling the famous 
D'Artagnan and Valois romances. 

The Place du Chatelet is one of the most cele- 
brated and historic open spots of Paris. The old 
prison was on the site of an old Caesarian forum. 
The prison was destroyed in 1806, but its history 
for seven centuries was one of the most dramatic. 

One may search for Planchet's shop, the " Pilon 
d'Or," of which Dumas writes in " The Vicomte 
de Bragelonne," in the Rue des Lombards of to-day, 
but he will not find it, though there are a dozen 
boutiques in the little street which joins the present 
Rue St. Denis with the present Boulevard Sebas- 
topol, which to all intents and purposes might as 
well have been the abode of D'Artagnan's old 
servitor. 

The Rue des Lombards, like Lombard Street in 
London, took its names from the original money- 
changers, who gathered here in great numbers in 
the twelfth century. Planchet's little shop was 
devoted to the sale of green groceries, with, pre- 
sumably, a sprinkling of other attendant garni shings 
for the table. 

To-day, the most notable of the shops here, of a 
similar character, is the famous magasin de con- 
iiserie, " Au Fidele Berger," for which Guilbert, the 
author of " Jeune Malade," made the original verses 



2o6 Dumas' lpari0 

for the wrappers which covered the products of the 
house. A contemporary of the poet has said that 
the " enveloppe etait moins bonne que la ma/rchan- 
daisef' 

The reader may judge for himself. This is one 
of the verses : 

" Le soleil peut s'eteindre et le ciel s'obscurcir, 
J'ai vu ma Marita, je n'ai plus qu'a mourir." 

Every lover of Dumas' romances, and all who 
feel as though at one time or another they had been 
blessed with an intimate acquaintance with that 
** King of Cavaliers," — D'Artagnan, — will have 
a fondness for the old narrow ways in the Rue 
d'Arbre Sec, which remains to-day much as it always 
was. 

It runs from the Quai de THotel de Ville, — once 
the unsavoury Quai de la Greve, — toward Les 
Halles; and throughout its length, which is not 
very great, it has that crazy, tumble-down appear- 
ance which comes, sooner or later, to most narrow 
thoroughfares of miediseval times. 

It is not so very picturesque nor so very tumble- 
down, it is simply wobbly. It is not, nor ever was, 
a pretentious thoroughfare, and, in short, is dis- 
tinctly commonplace; but there is a little house, 
on the right-hand side, near the river, which will 




HOTEL DES MOUSQUETAIRES, RUE D'ARBRE SEC 



%a IDille 207 

be famous as long as it stands, as the intimate scene 
of much of the minor action of " Marguerite de 
Valois/' " Chicot the Jester/* and others of the 
series. 

This maison is rather better off than most of its 
neighbours, with its white-fronted lower stories, its 
little balcony over the Cremerie, which now occu- 
pies the ground-floor, and its escutcheon — a blazing 
sun — midway in its fagade. 

Moreover it is still a lodging-house, — an hum- 
ble hotel if you like, — at any rate something more 
than a mere house which offers '' logement a pied/' 
Indeed its enterprising proprietor has erected a 
staring blue and white enamel sign which adver- 
tises his house: 



HOTEL 
DES MOUSQUETAIRES 



There is, perhaps, no harm in all this, as it would 
seem beyond all question to have some justification 
for its name, and it is above all something more 
tangible than the sites of many homes and haunts 
which may to-day be occupied with a modem maga- 
sin, a tous genres, or a great tourist caravanserai. 

This house bears the name of Hotel des Mous- 



2o8 2)ttma5' parts 

quetaires/' as if it were really a lineal descendant 
of the " Hotel de la Belle Etoile," of which Dumas 
writes. 

Probably it is not the same, and if it is, there is, 
likely enough, no significance between its present 
name and its former glory save that of perspicacity 
on the part of the present patron. 

From the romance one learns how Catherine de 
Medici sought to obtain that compromising note 
which was in possession of Orthon, the page. Dumas 
says of this horror-chamber of the Louvre : 

" Catherine now reached a second door, which, 
revolving on its hinges, admitted to the depths of 
the oubliette, where — crushed, bleeding, and muti- 
lated, by a fall of more than one hundred feet — 
lay the still palpitating form of poor Orthon ; while, 
on the other side of the wall forming the barrier 
of this dreadful spot, the waters of the Seine were 
heard to ripple by, brought by a species of subter- 
raneous filtration to the foot of the staircase. 

" Having reached the damp and unwholesome 
abyss, which, during her reign, had witnessed 
numerous similar scenes to that now enacted, Cath- 
erine proceeded to search the corpse, eagerly drew 
forth the desired billet, ascertained by the lantern 
that it was the one she sought, then, pushing the 
mangled body from her, she pressed a spring, the 



Xa IDtlle 209 

bottom of the oubliette sank down, and the corpse, 
borne by its own weight, disappeared toward the 
river. 

" Closing the door after her, she reascended; and, 
returning to her closet, read the paper poor Orthon 
had so valiantly defended. It was conceived in 
these words : 

" ' This evening at ten o'clock. Rue de I'Arbre- 
Sec, Hotel de la Belle Etoile. Should you come, no 
reply is requisite ; if otherwise, send word back. No, 
by the bearer. 

" ' De Mouy de Saint-Phale/ 

" At eight o'clock Henri of Navarre took two of 
his gentlemen, went out by the Porte St. Honore, en- 
tered again by the Tour de Bois, crossed the Seine 
at the ferry of the Nesle, mounted the Rue St. 
Jacques, and there dismissed them, as if he were 
going to an amorous rendezvous. At the comer 
of the Rue des Mathurins he found a man on horse- 
back, wrapped in a large cloak ; he approached him. 

" ' Mantes ! ' said the man. 

" ' Pau ! ' replied the king. 

" The horseman instantly dismounted. Henri 
wrapped himself in his splashed mantle, sprang on 
his steed, rode down the Rue de la Harpe, crossed 
the Pont St. Michel, passed the Rue Barthelemy, 



2IO H)ttma6' Paris 

crossed the river again on the Pont au Meunier, 
descended the quais, reached the Rue de I'Arbre-Sec, 
and knocked at Maitre la Huriere's." 

The route is easily traced to-day, and at the end 
of it is the Hotel des Mousquetaires, so it will not 
take much imagination to revivify the incident 
which Dumas conceived, though one may not get 
there that " good wine of Artois " which the inn- 
keeper, La Huriere, served to Henri. 

The circumstance is recounted in " Marguerite de 
Valois," as follows: 

" ' La Huriere, here is a gentleman wants you.' 

" La Huriere advanced, and looked at Henri ; 
and, as his large cloak did not inspire him with very 
great veneration: 

" * Who are you ? ' asked he. 

" * Eh, sang Dieu! ' returned Henri, pointing to 
La Mole. * I am, as the gentleman told you, a 
Gascon gentleman come to court/ 

"* What do you want?' 

" * A room and supper.' 

" * I do not let a room to any one, unless he has 
a lackey.' 

" * Oh, but I will pay you a rose noble for your 
room and supper.' 

" ' You are very generous, worthy sir,' said La 
Huriere, with some distrust. 



Xa Dille 211 

" ' No; but expecting to sup here, I invited a 
friend of mine to meet me. Have you any good 
wine of Artois ? ' 

" ' I have as good as the King of Navarre drinks.' 

"* Ah, good!'" 

The Rue de I'Arbre-Sec is of itself historic, though 
it was baptized as L'Arbre-Sel. Two legends of 
more than ordinary interest are connected with this 
once important though unimposing street. The first 
applies to its early nomenclature, and is to the effect 
that in the thirteenth century it contained an oak- 
tree, which, in the snows of winter, always remained 
free of the white blanket which otherwise covered 
everything around about. For this reason the tree 
was said to be so full of salt that the snow that 
fell upon it melted immediately, and the name was 
created for the thoroughfare, which then first rose 
to the dignity of a recognized rue. 

The second legend in a similar way accounts for 
the change of name to arhre-sec. At a certain rainy 
period, when the pavements and the walls of the 
houses were '' ruisselants d'eau'' the same tree re- 
mained absolutely dry. It is curious, too, to note 
that the Rue de I'Arbre-Sec is identified with a 
certain personage who lived in Mazarin's time, by 
the name of Mathieu Molle, whose fame as the 
first president of the Parlement is preserved in the 



212 S)uma6' Paris 

neighbouring Rue Mathieu Molle. It was in the 
hotel of " La Belle Etoile " that Dumas ensconced 
his character De la Mole — showing once again 
that Dumas dealt with very real characters. 

Opposite the colonnade of the Louvre is the figlise 
St. Germain I'Auxerrois. From this church — 
founded by Childebert in 606 — rang out the tocsin 
which was the signal for that infamous massacre 
of the Protestants in the time of Charles IX. In 
" Marguerite de Valois " Dumas has vividly de- 
scribed the event; not, perhaps, without certain 
embroidered embellishment, but, nevertheless, with 
a graphicness which the dry-as-dust historian of 
fact could hardly hope to equal. 

This cruel inspiration of Catherine de Medici's is 
recorded by Dumas thus : 

" 'Hush! 'said La Huriere. 

" * What is it ? ' inquired Coconnas and Maurevel 
together. 

" They heard the first stroke of the bell of St. 
Germain de I'Auxerrois vibrate. 

" * The signal ! ' exclaimed Maurevel. * The time 
is put ahead, for it was agreed for midnight. So 
much the better. When it is the interest of God 
and the king, it is better that the clock should be 
put forward than backward.' And the sinister 
sound of the church-bell was distinctly heard. Then 



%a IDille 213 

a shot was fired, and, in an instant, the light of 
several flambeaux blazed up like flashes of lightning 
in the Rue de I'Arbre-Sec." 

There is much more of moment that happened 
before and afterward " on this bloody ground; " all 
of which is fully recounted by the historians. 

At No. 7 Rue du Helder, just off the Boulevard 
des Italiens, in a region so well known to Dumas 
and his associates, lived De Franchi, the hero of the 
" Corsican Brothers." The locale and the action 
of that rapid review of emotions to which Dumas 
gave the name of the " Corsican Brothers " (" Les 
Freres du Corse "), was not of the mean or sordid 
order, but rather of the well-to-do, a sort of semi- 
luxuriousness of the middle-class life of the time. 

The scene of the novelette bears the date of 
1 84 1, and Paris, especially in many of what are 
known as the newxr parts, has changed but little 
since. A new shop-front here and there, the addi- 
tion of a huge gilt sign, of which the proprietors 
of Parisian establishments are so fond, somewhat 
changes the outside aspect of things, but, on the 
whole, the locale often remains much as it was 
before, and, in this case, with but scarce three- 
quarters of a century past, the view down the Rue 



214 2)umas' pads 

du Helder from its junction with Rue Taitbout 
differs little. 

" Hotel Picardie," in the Rue Tiquetonne, — still 
to be seen, — may or may not be the " La Che- 
vrette " of " Twenty Years After," tO' which 
D'Artagnan repaired in the later years of his 
life. D'Artagnan's residence in the Rue Tiquetonne 
has, in the minds of many, made the street famous. 
It was famous, though, even before it was popu- 
larized by Dumas, and now that we are not able 
even to place the inn where D'Artagnan lived after 
he had retired from active service — it is still 
famous. 

At No. 12 and i6 are two grand habitations of 
former times. The former served as a residence 
to Henri de Talleyrand, who' died in 1626, and 
later to the Marquis de Mauge, then to Daubonne, 
a tapissier, much in the favour of Louis XIH. 

The other is known as the " Hotel d'Artagnan," 
but it is difficult to trace its evolution from the 
comfortable inn of which Dumas wrote. 

At No. 23 is about the only relique left which 
bespeaks the gallant days of D'Artagnan and his 
fellows. It is a square tower of ^Yt Stages, and, 
from the character of its architecture, we know it 
to be of the fourteenth or fifteenth century. It is 
known as the " Tour de Jean-sans-Peur." Jean- 




d'artagnan's lodgings, rue tiquetonne 



3La IDille 215 

sans-Peur was the grandfather of Charles-le-Teme- 
raire. Monstrelet has said that it was built to con- 
tain a strong chamber, in which its owner might 
sleep safely at night. It formed originally a part 
of the Hotel de Bourgogne, but to-day, though but 
partially disengaged from the neighbouring houses, 
it is evidently the only member of the original estab- 
lishment which remains. 

Not far from the precincts of the Louvre was 
the Rue de la Martellerie, where lived Marie 
Touchet. 

The portraiture of Dumas forms a wonderfully 
complete list of the royalties and nobilities of 
France. Both the D'Artagnan gallery and the 
Valois series literally reek with the names of cele- 
brated personages, and this, too, in the mere 
romances, for it must be remembered that, in spite 
of his reputation as a romancist, Dumas' historical 
sketches and travels were both numerous and of 
great extent. 

One significant portrait, though it is not one of 
noble birth, is that of Marie Touchet, extracted from 
" Marguerite de Valois," and reprinted here. 

" When Charles IX. and Henri of Navarre visited 
the Rue de la Martellerie, it was to see the celebrated 
Marie, who, though * only a poor, simple girl,' as 
she referred to herself, was the Eve of Charles' 



2i6 Dumas' ipatts 

paradise. * Your Eden, Sire/ said the gallant 
Henri. 

" ' Dearest Marie/ said Charles, * I have brought 
you another king happier than myself, for he has 
no crown; more unhappy than me, for he has no 
Marie Touchet.' 

" * Sire, it is, then, the King of Navarre? ' 

" ' It is, love.' 

*' Henri went toward her, and Charles took his 
right hand. 

" ' Look at this hand, Marie,' said he; * it is the 
hand of a good brother and a loyal friend ; and but 
for this hand — ' 

"*Well, Sire!' 

" ' But for this hand, this day, Marie, our boy 
had been fatherless.' 

" Marie uttered a cry, seized Henri's hand, and 
kissed it. 

" The king went to the bed where the child was 
still asleep. 

" * Eh ! ' said he, ' if this stout boy slept in the 
Louvre, instead of sleeping in this small house, he 
would change the aspect of things at present, and 
perhaps for the future.' 

" * Sire,' said Marie, ' without offence to your 
Majesty, I prefer his sleeping here; he sleeps 
better.' " 



%a mile 217 

This illustrates only one phase of Dumas' power 
of portraiture, based on historical fact, of course, 
and casting no new light on matters which are 
otherwise well known, but still a very fresh and 
vivifying method of projecting the features of those 
famous in the history of France, and a method, per- 
haps, which will serve to impress them upon the 
reader in a more nearly indelible fashion than any 
other. 

" It was this child of Marie Touchet and Charles 
IX. who afterward was the famous Duke d'An- 
gouleme, who died in 1650; and, had he been le- 
gitimate, would have taken precedence of Henri HI., 
Henri IV., Louis XIIL, Louis XIV., etc., and 
altered the w^hole line of the royal succession of 
France." 

It was a pleasurable visit for all three, that of 
which Dumas writes. 

Charles, Henri, and Marie supped together, and 
the accomplished Prince of Beam made the famous 
anagram from the letters of the lady's name, " Je 
charme tout/' which Charles declared he would 
present to her worked in diamonds, and that it 
should be her motto. 

History does not state that he did so, but no 
doubt that w^as a detail which the chroniclers have 



2i8 S)ttma6' Paris 

overlooked, or, of course, it may have been an 
interpolation of Dumas'. 

Dumas' pen-pictures of the great Napoleon — 
whom he referred to as " The Ogre of Corsica " — 
will hardly please the great Corsican's admirers, 
though it is in no manner contemptuous. The 
following is from " The Count of Monte Cristo " : 

" * Monsieur,' said the baron to the count, ' all 
the servants of his Majesty must approve of the 
latest intelligence which we have from the island 
of Elba. Bonaparte — ' M. Dandre looked at 
Louis XVIIL, who, employed in writing a note, 
did not even raise his head. * Bonaparte,' continued 
the baron, * is mortally wearied, and passes whole 
days in watching his miners at work at Porto- 
Longone.' 

" * And scratches himself for amusement,' added 
the king. 

" * Scratches himself ? ' inquired the count. * What 
does your Majesty mean? ' 

" ' Yes, indeed, my dear count. Did you forget 
that this great man, this hero, this demigod, is 
attacked with a malady of the skin which worries 
him to death, prurigo f 

" * And, moreover, M. le Comte,' continued the 



Xa IDille 219 

minister of police, ' we are almost assured that, in 
a very short time, the usurper will be insane.' 

"* Insane?' 

" * Insane to a degree ; his head becomes weaker. 
Sometimes he weeps bitterly, sometimes laughs 
boisterously; at other times he passes hours on the 
seashore, flinging stones in the water, and when the 
flint makes " ducks and drakes " five or six times, 
he appears as delighted as if he had gained another 
Marengo or Austerlitz. Now, you must agree these 
are indubitable symptoms of weakness ? ' 

" ' Or of wisdom, M. le Baron — or of wisdom,' 
said Louis XVIIL, laughing; * the greatest captains 
of antiquity recreated themselves with casting peb- 
bles into the ocean — see Plutarch's life of Scipio 
Africanus.' " 

Again, from the same work, the following esti- 
mate of Napoleon's position at Elba was, if not 
original, at least opinionated : 

" The emperor, now king of the petty isle of 
Elba, after having held sovereign sway over one- 
half of the world, counting us, his subjects, a small 
population of twenty millions, — after having been 
accustomed to hear the *" Vive Napoleons ' of at 
least six times that number of human beings, uttered 
in nearly every language of the globe, — was looked 
upon among the haute societe of Marseilles as a 



220 Dumas' ipatis 

ruined man, 'separated for ever from any fresh con- 
nection with France or claim to her throne." 

Firstly the Faubourg St. Denis is associated with 
Dumas' early life in Paris. He lived at No. 53 
of the Rue du Faubourg St. Denis in 1824. 

When one walks past the Porte St. Denis and 
looks up at that seventeenth-century arch of 
triumph, built tO' commemorate the German vic- 
tories of Louis Quatorze, one just misses the his- 
torical significance and architectural fitness of the 
arch. It is not merely an incident in the boulevard. 
It belongs not so much to the newer boulevard, as 
to the ancient Rue St. Denis, and it is only by 
proceeding some distance up this street, the ancient 
route of the pilgrims to the tomb of the saint, that 
the meaning of the Porte St. Denis can truly be 
appreciated. The arch may be heavy, — it has been 
described as hideous, and it truly is, — but seen in 
the Rue St. Denis, whose roadway passes under it, it 
forms a typical view even to-day of Old Paris, and 
of the Paris which entered so largely into Dumas' 
romances of the Louis. 

The more ancient Porte St. Denis, the gateway 
which lay between the faubourg, the plain, and the 
ville, performed a function quite different from that 
of the Renaissance gateway which exists to-day; 



Xa IDille 221 

in just what manner will be readily inferred when 
it is recalled that, with the Porte St. Antoine, the 
Porte St. Denis was the scene of much riot and 
bloodshed in the early history of Paris. 

There are no tram-cars or omnibuses passing 
through its arch, as through the Place du Carrousel, 
or the courtyards of the Louvre, to- take away the 
sentiment of romance; though the traffic which 
swirls and eddies around its sturdy piers and walls 
is of a manifest up-to-date, twentieth-century 
variety. 

Through its great arch runs the Rue du Fau- 
bourg St. Denis, where, at No. 109, was the studio 
of Gabriel Descamps, celebrated in " Capitaine 
Pamphile." 

In " Marguerite de Valois " we have a graphic 
reference — though rather more sentimental than 
was the author's wont — to the Cimetiere des Inno- 
cents : 

" On the day which succeeded that terrible massa- 
cre of St. Bartholomew's night, in 1572, a hawthorn- 
tree," said Dumas, and it is also recognized history, 
as well, " which had blossomed in the spring, and 
which, according to custom, had lost its odorous 
flower in the month of June, had strangely re- 
blossomed during the night, and the Catholics, who 



22 2 Dumas' parts 

saw in this even a miracle, and who by rendering 
this miracle popular made the Deity their accom- 
plice, went in procession, cross and banner at their 
head, to the Cemetery of the Innocents, where this 
hawthorn was blooming." 

Amidst the cries of '"'' Vive le roi! '' '' Vive la 
messe! " '' Mort aux Huguenots,'' the accomplished 
Marguerite herself went to witness the phenomenon. 

" When they reached the top of the Rue des 
Prouvelles, they met some men who were dragging 
a carcass without any head. It was that of * the 
admiral' (Coligny). . . . The men were going to 
hang it by the feet at Montfaucon. . . ." 

" They entered the Cemetery of St. Innocents, 
and the clergy, forewarned of the visit of the king 
and the queen mother, awaited their Majesties to 
harangue them." 

The cemetery — or signs of it — have now dis- 
appeared, though the mortal victims of the massacre, 
and countless other souls besides, rest beneath the 
flagstones adjacent to Les Halles, the great market- 
house of Paris. 

The Fontaine des Innocents formerly marked the 
site, but now it is removed to the other side of 
Les Halles. 

This graceful Renaissance fountain was first 
erected in 1550, from designs of Pierre Lescot and 



Xa mile 223 

Jean Goujon. It stood formerly before the figlise 
des Innocents, which was demoHshed in 1783. 

The Fontaine des Innocents, in spite of its mi- 
grations, is a charming oasis of green trees and 
running water, in the midst of the rather encum- 
bered market-square of Les Halles. Not that the 
region around about is at all unsavoury ; far from it. 
There is debris of green vegetables and ripe fruits 
everywhere about, but it has not yet reached the 
unsavoury stage; before it does all will be swept 
away, and on the morrow the clamour and traffic 
will start fresh anew. 

The Place Royale, now called the Place des 
Vosges, is so largely identified with " La Comtesse 
de Charny " that no special mention can well be 
made of any action which here took place. 

At No. 21, now of course long since departed, 
lived " a gentleman entirely devoted to your 
Majesty," said Dumas, and the adventuress. Lady 
de Winter, whom D'Artagnan was wont to visit, 
was given domicile by Dumas at No. 6. Likely 
enough it was her true residence, though there is 
no opportunity of tracing it to-day, and one per- 
force must be satisfied with locating the houses of 
Madame de Sevigne and Victor Hugo, each of 
which bear tablets to that effect. 

The Place des Vosges is a charming square. 



224 Dumas^ parts 

reminiscent, in a way, of the courtyard of the Palais 
Royal, though lacking its splendour. The iron 
gateway to the central garden was a gift of 
Louis XIV., in 1685, when the square was known 
as the Place Royale. Richelieu caused to be 
set up here a magnificent equestrian statue of 
Louis XIIL, which, however, was overturned in 
the Revolution, though it has since been replaced 
by another statue. The horse was the work of 
Ricciarelli de Volterre, a pupil of Michelangelo, 
and the figure was by Biard. 

The first great historical event held here was the 
carrousel given in 161 2, two years after the tragic 
death of Henri IV. at the hands of the assassin 
Ravaillac. It was a function of Marie de Medici's 
to celebrate the alliance of France and Spain. 

Under Richelieu, the place became a celebrated 
duelling-ground, the most famous duel being that 
between the Due de Guise and Coligny iilSj the son 
of the admiral. 

The Place Royale soon became the most fashion- 
able qiiartier, the houses around about being greatly 
in demand of the noblesse. 

Among its illustrious inhabitants have been the 
Rohans, the D'Alegres, Corneille, Conde, St. Vin- 
cent de Paul, Moliere, Turenne, Madame de Longue- 
ville, Cinq-Mars, and Richelieu. 



Xa Dille 225 

By un arrets of the 17th' Ventose, year VII., it 
was declared that the name of the department which 
should pay the largest part of its contributions by 
the 20th Germinal would be given to that of the 
principal place or square of Paris. The Department 
of the Vosges was the first to pay up, and the 
Place Roy ale became the Place des Vosges. 

A great deal of the action of the D'Artagnan 
romances took place in the Place Royale, and in 
the neighbouring quartiers of St. Antoine and La 
Bastille, the place being the scene of the notable 
reunion of the four gallants in " Vingt Ans Apres." 

La Roquette, the prison, has disappeared, like 
the Bastille itself, but they are both perpetuated 
to-day, the former in the Rue Roquette, and the 
latter in the Place de la Bastille. 

Dumas does not project their horrors unduly, 
though the Bastille crops up in many of the chapters 
of the Valois romances, and one entire volume is 
devoted to " The Taking of the Bastille." 

D'Artagnan himself was doomed, by an order of 
arrest issued by Richelieu, to be incarcerated therein ; 
but the gallant mousquetaire, by a subtle scheme, 
got hold of the warrant and made a present of it 
to the intriguing cardinal himself. 

The sombre and sinister guillotine, since become 
so famous, is made by Dumas subject of a weirdly 



226 Dumas' Paris 

fascinating chapter in " La Comtesse de Charny." 
Dumas' description is as follows : 

" When Guilbert got out of the carriage he saw 
that he was in the court of a prison, and at once rec- 
ognized it as the Bicetre. A fine misty rain fell 
diagonally and stained the gray walls. In the middle 
of the court five or six carpenters, under the direc- 
tion of a master workman, and a little man clad in 
black, who seemed to direct everybody, put a machine 
of a hitherto strange and unknown form. Guilbert 
shuddered ; he recognized Doctor Guillotin, and the 
machine itself was the one of which he had seen 
a model in the cellar of the editor of ' Vami du 
peuplef . . . The very workmen were as yet igno- 
rant of the secret of this novel machine. ' There,' 
said Doctor Guillotin, . . . ' it is now only neces- 
sary to put the knife in the groove.' . . . This was 
the form of the machine: a platform fifteen feet 
square, reached by a simple staircase, on each side 
of this platform two grooved uprights, ten or 
twelve feet high. In the grooves slid a kind of 
crescent-shaped knife. A little opening was made 
between two beams, through which a man's head 
could be passed. . , . ' Gentlemen,' said Guillotin, 
* all being here, we will begin.' " 

Then follows the same vivid record of executing 
and blood-spurting that has attracted many other 



%a mile 227 

writers perhaps as gifted as Dumas, but none have 
told it more graphically, simply, or truthfully. 

Every one knows the Mount of Martyrs, its his- 
tory, and its modern aspect, which has sadly de- 
generated of late. 

To-day it is simply a hilltop of cheap gaiety, 
whose patrons are catered for by the Moulin 
Rouge, the Moulin de la Galette, and a score of 
" eccentric cafes," though its past is burdened with 
Christian tragedy. Up its slope St. Denis is fab- 
ulously supposed to have carried his head after his 
martyrdom, and the quiet, almost forlorn Rue St. 
Eleuthere still perpetuates the name of his com- 
panion in misery. Long afterward, in the chapel 
erected on this spot, Ignatius Loyola and his com- 
panions solemnly vowed themselves to their great 
work. So here on sinful Montmartre, above Paris, 
was bom the Society of Jesus. The Revolution 
saw another band of martyrs, when the nuns of 
the Abbaye de Montmartre, old and young, chanted 
their progress to the guillotine, and little 'more than 
thirty years ago the Commune precipitated its ter- 
rible struggle in Montmartre. It was in the Rue 
des Ro'siers, on the i8th of March, 1871, that the 
blood of Generals Lecomte and Clement-Thomas 
was shed. 



228 Dumas' parts 

Hard by, in the Pare Monceau, is the statue of 
Guy de Maupassant, and so the memory of the 
sinful mount is perpetuated to us. 

Dumas did not make the use of this banal attri- 
bute of Paris that many other realists and roman- 
cists alike have done, but he frequently refers to it 
in his " Memoires." 

Madame de la Motte, the scheming adventuress 
of the " Collier de la Reine," lived at No. 57 Rue 
Chariot, in the Quartier des Infants-Rouges. It 
was here, at the Hotel Boulainvilliers, where the 
Marquise de Boulainvilliers brought up the young 
girl of the blood royal of the Valois, who after- 
ward became known as Madame de la Motte. 

Near by, in the same street, is the superb hotel 
of Gabrielle d'Estrees, who herself was not alto- 
gether unknown to the court. The Rue de Valois, 
leading from the Rue St. Honore to the Rue Beau- 
jolais, beside the Palais Royal, as might be sup- 
posed, especially appealed to Dumas, and he laid one 
of the most cheerful scenes of the " Chevalier 
d'Harmental " in the hotel. No. 10, built by Riche- 
lieu for L'Abbe Metel de Bois-Robert, the founder 
of the Academie Frangaise. 

Off the Rue Sourdiere, was the Couloir St. 
Hyacinthe, where lived Jean Paul Marat — "the 
friend of the people," whose description by Dumas, 



5La mile i^<) 

in " La Comtesse de Charny," does not differ greatly 
from others of this notorious person. 

In the early pages of " The Count of Monte 
Cristo," one's attention is transferred from Mar- 
seilles to Paris, to No. 13 Rue Coq-Heron, where 
lived M. Noirtier, to whom the luckless Dantes 
was commissioned tO' deliver the fateful packet, 
which was left in his care by the dying Captain 
Leclerc. 

The incident of the handing over of this letter 
to the depute procureur du roi is recounted thus by 
Dumas: 

" ' Stop a moment,' said the deputy, as Dantes 
took his hat and gloves. * To whom is it ad- 
dressed ? ' 

" ' To M. Noirtier, Rue Coq-Heron, Paris.' 
Had a thunderbolt fallen into the room, Villefort 
could not have been more stupefied. He sank into 
his seat, and, hastily turning over the packet, drew 
forth the fatal letter, at which he glanced with an 
expression of terror. 

" * M. Noirtier, Rue Coq-Heron, No. 13,' mur- 
mured he, growing still paler. 

" ' Yes,' said Dantes ; * do you then know him ? ' 

" * No,' replied Villefort ; ' a faithful servant of 
the king does not know conspirators.' 

" * It is a conspiracy, then ? ' asked Dantes, who, 



230 2)umas' Ipatis 

after believing himself free, now began to feel a ten- 
fold alarm. * I have already told you, however, sir, 
I was ignorant of the contents of the letter/ 

** * Yes, but you knew the name of the person 
to whom it was addressed,' said Villefort. 

" * I was forced to read the address tO' know to 
whom to give it.' 

" * Have you shown this letter to any one ? ' asked 
Villefort, becoming still rhore pale. 

" * To no one, on my honour.' 

" * Everybody is ignorant that you are the bearer 
of a letter from the isle of Elba, and addressed to 
M. Noirtier?' 

** * Everybody, except the person who gave it to 



The Rue Coq-Heron is one of those whimsically 
named streets of Paris, which lend themselves to 
the art of the novelist. 

The origin of the name of this tiny street, which 
runs tangently off from the Rue du Louvre, is 
curious and na'ive. A shopkeeper of the street, 
who raised fowls, saw, one day, coming out of its 
shell, a petit coq with a neck and beak quite dif- 
ferent, and much longer, than the others of the 
same brood. Everybody said it was a heron, and 
the neighbours crowded around to see the phe- 



%a IDille 231 

nomenon; and so the street came to be baptized 
the Rue Coq-Heron. 

In the Rue Chaussee d'Antin, at No. 7, the 
wily Baron Danglars had ensconced himself after 
his descent on Paris. It was here that Dantes 
caused to be left his first ''*' carte de visite " upon 
his subsequent arrival. 

Among the slighter works of Dumas, which are 
daily becoming more and more recognized — in 
English — as being masterpieces of their kind, is 
" Gabriel Lambert." It deals with the life of Paris 
of the thirties ; much the same period as does "' Cap- 
tain Pamphile," " The Corsican Brothers," and 
" Pauline," and that in which Dumas himself was 
just entering into the literary life of Paris. 

Like " Pauline " and " Captain Pamphile," too, 
the narrative, simple though it is, — at least it is not 
involved, — shifts its scenes the length and breadth 
of the continent of Europe, and shows a versatility 
in the construction of a latter-day romance which is 
quite the equal of that of the unapproachable medi- 
aeval romances. It further resembles " The Corsi- 
can Brothers," in that it purveys a duel of the first 
quality — this time in the Allee de la Muette of the 
Bois de Boulogne, and that most of the Parisians 
in the story are domiciled in and about the Boule- 
vard des Italiens, the Rue Taitbout, and the Rue 



232 S)umas' Paris 

du Helder; all of them localities very familiar to 
Dumas in real life. In spite of the similarity of 
the duel of Gabriel to that of De Franchi, there is 
no repetition of scene or incident detail. 

The story deals frankly with the brutal and vulgar 
malefactor, in this case a counterfeiter of bank notes, 
one Gabriel, the son of a poor peasant of Normandy, 
who, it would appear, was fascinated by the omi- 
nous words of the inscription which French bank 
notes formerly bore. 



LA LOI PUNIT DE MORT 
LE CONTREFACTEUR 



Dumas occasionally took up a theme which, un- 
promising in itself, was yet alluring through its very 
lack of sympathy. " Gabriel Lambert " is a story 
of vulgar rascality unredeemed by any spark of 
courage, wit, or humanity. There is much of tiiith 
in the characterization, and some sentiment, but little 
enough of romance of the gallant vagabond order. 

Dumas never attempted a more difficult feat than 
the composition of an appealing story from this 
material. 

Twenty years after the first appearance of 
" Gabriel Lambert," in 1844, M. Amedee de Jallais 



%a IDille 233 

brought Dumas a " scenario '' taken from the ro- 
mance. Unsuitable and unsympathetic though the 
principal character was, Dumas found the " scena- 
rio " so deftly made that he resolved to turn the book 
into a drama. This was quickly done, and the re- 
hearsals promised a success. On the evening of the 
first performance Dumas showed h^imself full of 
confidence in the play — confidence which amounted 
almost to certainty; for he said to a friend with 
whom he promenaded the corridors of the theatre 
while awaiting the rise of the curtain : " I am sure 
of my piece ; to-night, I can defy the critics." Some 
of these gentlemen, unfortunately overhearing him, 
were provoked to hostility, and, finding unhappy 
phrases here and there in the piece, they laid hold 
of them without mercy. Only the comic part of 
the drama, a scene introduced by Dumas, in which 
a vagabond steals a clock in the presence of its 
owner with superb audacity, disarmed their oppo- 
sition. But the verve of this comic part could not 
save the play, says Gabriel Ferry, in narrating this 
anecdote. The antipathy aroused by the principal 
character doomed it, and the career of the piece was 
short. 

It remains, however, — in the book, at any rate, 
— a wonderful characterization, with its pictures 
of the blue Mediterranean at Toulon, the gay life 



234 2)umas' iParis 

of the Parisian boulevards, its miniature portrait 
of the great Vidocq, and the sinister account of 
the prison of Bicetre, which, since the abandonment 
of the Place de la Greve, had become the last resort 
of those condemned to death. 

The tale is a short one, but it vibrates between 
the rues and the boulevards, from the Hotel de 
Venise in the Rue des Vieux-Augustins (now the 
Rue Herold), where Gabriel, upon coming to Paris, 
first had his lodgings, to the purlieus of the fash- 
ionable world, — the old Italian Opera in the Rue 
Pelletier, — and No. 1 1 Rue Taitbout, where after- 
ward Gabriel had ensconced himself in a luxurious 
apartment. 




NOTRE DAME DE PARIS 



CHAPTER XI. 

LA CITE 

/T is difficult to write of La Cite; it is in- 
deed, impossible to write of it with fulness, 
unless one were to devote a large volume 
— or many large volumes — to it alone. 

To the tourists it is mostly recalled as being the 
herceau of Notre Dame or the morgue. The latter, 
fortunately, is an entirely modern institution, and, 
though it existed in Dumas' own time, did not when 
the scenes of the D'Artagnan or Valois romances 
were laid. 

Looking toward Notre Dame from the Pont du 
Carrousel, one feels a veritable thrill of emotion 
as one regards this city of kings and revolutions. 

The very buildings on the lie de la Cite mingle 
in a symphony of ashen memories. The statue of 
the great Henri IV., bowered in trees; the two 
old houses at the apex of the Place Dauphine, in 
one of which Madame Roland was bom ; the mas- 

235 



236 Dumas' parts 

sive Palais de Justice; the soaring- Sainte Chapelle, 
which St. Louis built for the Crown of Thorns, 
and " to the glory of God and France," and the 
towers of the Conciergerie, whose floor is for ever 
stained with the tears of Marie Antoinette. 

Romance and history have both set their seal 
upon the locality, and no one better than Dumas 
has told its story in romance. 

Henri of Navarre being Protestant, the Church 
would not open its doors to him, and thus his mar- 
riage to the talented but wicked Margot, sister of 
Charles IX., took place on a platform erected before 
its doors. 

In the opening chapter of " Marguerite de 
Valois," Dumas refers to it thus : 

" The court was celebrating the marriage 
of Madame Marguerite de Valois, daughter of 
Henri II. and sister of King Charles IX., with 
Henri de Bourbon, King of Navarre; and that 
same morning the Cardinal de Bourbon had united 
the young couple with the usual ceremonial ob- 
served at the marriages of the royal daughters of 
France, on a stage erected at the entrance to Notre 
Dame. This marriage had astonished everybody, 
and occasioned much surmise to certain persons who 
saw clearer than others. They could not compre- 





■ff^- 



^■iiJJ^<,«^^g8jS«»^mW^»»«l!««^^ ■ - •■ ?".-:« 1 ■'■■ :v: r -^"^ 



J 



Xa Cite 237 

hend the union of two parties who hated each other 
so thoroughly as did, at this moment, the Protestant 
party and the CathoHc party; and they wondered 
how the young Prince de Conde could forgive the 
Duke d'Anjou, the king's father, for the death of 
his father, assassinated by Montesquieu at Jarnac. 
They asked how the young Duke de Guise could 
pardon Admiral de Coligny for the death of his 
father, assassinated at Orleans by Poltrot de 
Mere.'' 

The Tour de Nesle is one of those bygones of 
the history of Paris, which as a name is familiar to 
many, but which, after all, is a very vague mem- 
ory. 

It perpetuates an event of bloodshed which is 
familiar enough, but there are no tangible remains 
to mark the former site of the tower, and only 
the name remains — now given to a short and un- 
important rue. 

The use of the title "La Tour de Nesle," by 
Dumas, for a sort of second-hand article, — as he 
himself has said, — added little to his reputation 
as an author, or, rather, as a dramatist. 

In reality, he did no more than rebuild a romantic 
drama, such as he alone knows how to build, out 



238 Dumas* Paris 

of the framework which had been unsuccessfully 
put together by another — Gaillardet. However, 
it gives one other historical title to add to the already 
long list of his productions. 

The history of the Conciergerie is most lurid, 
and, withal, most emphatic, with regard to the 
political history of France. For the most part, 
it is more associated with political prisoners than 
with mere sordid crime, as, indeed, to a great extent 
were many of the prisons of France. 

The summer tourist connects it with Marie An- 
toinette; visits the " Cachot de Marie Antoinette; " 
the great hall where the Girondists awaited their 
fate; and passes on to the Palais des Beaux Arts, 
with never a thought as to the great political part 
that the old prison played in the monarchial history 
of France. 

To know it more fully, one should read No- 
garef s " Histoire des Prisons de Paris." There 
will be found anecdotes and memoirs, " rares et 
precieux/' and above all truthful. 

It has been eulogized, or, rather, anathematized 
in verse by Voltaire, — 



«* Exterminez, grandes Dieux, de la terre ou nous sommes 
Quiconque avec plaisir repand le sang des hommes," — 



%a Cite 239 

and historians and romancists have made profuse 
use of the recollections which hang about its grim 
walls. 

To-day it stands for much that it formerly repre- 
sented, but without the terrible inquisitorial methods. 
In fact, in the Palais de Justice, which now entirely 
surrounds all but the turreted fagade of tourelles, 
which fronts the Quai de I'Horloge, has so tem- 
pered its mercies that within the past year it has 
taken down that wonderful crucifix and triptych, so 
that those who may finally call upon the court of 
last appeal may not be unduly or superstitiously 
affected. 

The Place de la Greve opposite was famous for 
something more than its commercial reputation, as 
readers of the Valois romances of Dumas, and of 
Hugo's '' Dernier Jour d'un Condamne " will recall. 
It was a veritable Gehenna, a sort of Tower Hill, 
where a series of events as dark and bloody as those 
of any spot in Europe held forth, from 13 10, when 
a poor unfortunate, Marguerite Porette, was burned 
as a heretic, until 1830, — well within the scope of 
this book, — when the headsmen, stakesmen, and 
hangmen, who' had plied their trade here for five 
centuries, were abolished in favour of a less public 
harriere on the outskirts, or else the platform of the 
prison near the Cimetiere du Pere la Chaise. 



240 2)ttma5' Paris 

It was in 1830 that a low thief and murderer, 
Lacenaire, who was brought to the scaffold for 
his crimes, published in one of the Parisian papers 
some verses which were intended to extract sym- 
pathy for him as un homme de lettres. In reality 
they were the work of a barrister, Lemarquier by 
name, and failed utterly of their purpose, though 
their graphic lines might well have evoked sym- 
pathy, had the hoax carried : 

«' Slow wanes the long night, when the criminal wakes; 
And he curses the morn that his slumber breaks ; 
For he dream'd of other days. 

" His eyes he may close, — but the cold icy touch 
Of a frozen hand, and a corpse on his couch, 
Still comes to wither his soul. 

" And the headsman's voice, and hammer'd blows 
Of nails that the jointed gibbet close, 

And the solemn chant of the dead ! " 

La Conciergerie was perhaps one of the greatest 
show-places of the city for the morbidly inclined, 
and permission a visiter was at that time granted 
avec toutes facilites, being something more than is 
allowed to-day. 

The associations connected with this doleful build- 
ing are great indeed, as all histories of France and 
the guide-books tell. It was in the chapel of this 



%n Cite 241 

edifice that the victims of the Terror foregathered, 
to hear the names read out for execution, till all 
should have been made away. 

Miiller's painting in the Louvre depicts, with 
singular graphicness, this dreadful place of deten- 
tion, where princes and princesses, counts, mar- 
quises, bishops, and all ranks were herded amid an 
excruciating agony. 

In " The Queen's Necklace " we read of the Con- 
ciergerie — as we do of the Bastille. When that 
gang of conspirators, headed by Madame de la 
Motte, — Jeanne de St. Remy de Valois, — ap- 
peared for trial, they were brought from the Bas- 
tille to the Conciergerie. 

After the trial all the prisoners were locked for 
the night in the Conciergerie, sentence not being 
pronounced till the following day. 

The public whipping and branding of Madame 
de la Motte in the Cour du Justice, — still the cour 
where throngs pass and repass to the various 
court-rooms of the Palais de Justice, — as given by 
Dumas, is most realistically told, if briefly. It runs 
thus : 

" * Who is this man ? ' cried Jeanne, in a fright. 

" * The executioner, M. de Paris,' replied the 
registrar. 

" The two men then took hold of her to lead 



2 42 Dumas' parts 

her out. They took her thus into the court called 
Cour de Justice, where was a scaffold, and which 
was crowded with spectators. On a platform, raised 
about eight feet, was a post garnished with iron 
rings, and with a ladder to mount to it. This place 
was surrounded with soldiers. . . . 

" Numbers of the partisans of M. de Rohan had 
assembled to hoot her, and cries of ' A bas la Motte, 
the forger ! ' were heard on every side, and those 
who tried to express pity for her were soon silenced. 
Then she cried in a loud voice, * Do you know 
who I am? I am the blood of your kings. They 
strike in me, not a criminal, but a rival; not only 
a rival, but an accomplice. Yes,' repeated she, as 
the people kept silence to listen, * an accomplice. 
They punish one who knows the secrets of — ' 

" * Take care,' interrupted the executioner. 

" She turned and saw the executioner with the 
whip in his hand. At this sight she forgot her 
desire to captivate the multitude, and even her 
hatred, and, sinking on her knees, she said, * Have 
pity ! ' and seized his hand ; but he raised the other, 
and let the whip fall lightly on her shoulders. She 
jumped up, and was about to try and throw herself 
off the scaffold, when she saw the other man, who 
was drawing from a fire a hot iron. At this sight 



%a Cite 243 

she uttered a perfect howl, which was echoed by 
the people. 

" ' Help! help! ' she cried, trying to shake off the 
cord with which they were tying her hands. The 
executioner at last forced her on her knees, and 
tore open her dress; but she cried, with a voice 
which was heard through all the tumult, * Cowardly 
Frenchmen! you do not defend me, but let me be 
tortured; oh! it is my own fault. If I had said 
all I knew of the queen I should have been — ' 

" She could say no more, for she was gagged by 
the attendants : then two men held her, while the 
executioner performed his office. At the touch of 
the iron she fainted, and was carried back insensible 
to the Conciergerie." 



CHAPTER XII. 



L UNIVERSITE QUARTIER 

L 'UNIVERSITY is the quartier which fore- 
gathered its components, more or less un- 
consciously, around the Sorbonne. 

To-day the name still means what it always did; 
the Ecole de Medicine, the Ecole de Droit, the 
Beaux Arts, the Observatoire, and the student 
ateliers of the Latin Quarter, all go to make it some- 
thing quite foreign to any other section of Paris. 

The present structure known as *' The Sor- 
bonne " was built by Richelieu in 1629, as a sort 
of glorified successor to the ancient foundation of 
Robert de Sorbonne, confessor to St. Louis in 1253. 
The present Universite, as an institution, was 
founded, among many other good and valuable 
things, which he has not always been given credit 
for, by the astute Napoleon I. 

With the work of the romancer, it is the unex- 
pected that always happens. But this very unexpect- 

244 



X'mniverstte (Siuartter 245 

edness is only another expression of naturalness; 
which raises the question : Is not the romancist 
more of a realist than is commonly supposed? 

Dumas often accomplished the unconventional, 
and often the miraculous, but the gallant attack of 
D'Artagnan and his three whilom adversaries 
against the Cardinal's Guard is by no means an 
impossible or unreasonable incident. Considering 
Dumas' ingenuity and freedom, it would be un- 
reasonable to expect that things might not take the 
turn that they did. 

Of " Les Trois Mousquetaires " alone, the scheme 
of adventure and incident is as orderly and saga- 
cious as though it had been laid down by the wily 
cardinal himself; and therein is Dumas' success as 
the romancist par excellence of his time. A ro- 
mancist who was at least enough of a realist to 
be natural, if unconventional. 

Dumas is supposed to have fallen from the 
heights scaled by means of " Les Trois Mousque- 
taires," when he wrote " Vingt Ans Apres." As 
a piece of literary workmanship, this perhaps is so; 
as a chronicle of great interest to the reader, who 
would trace the movement of its plot by existing 
stones and shrines, it is hardly the case. 

One can get up a wonderful enthusiasm for the 
old Luxembourg quarter, which the Gascon Don 



246 2)ttmas' parts 

Quixote entered by one of the southern gates, astride 
his Ro'sinante. The whole neighbourhood abounds 
with reminiscences of the characters of the tale: 
D'Artagnan, with the Rue des Fossoyeurs, now the 
Rue Servandoni; Athos with the Rue Ferou; 
Aramis, with the Rue de la Harpe, and so on. 

There is, however, a certain tangible sentimen- 
tality connected with the adventures of Athos, 
Aramis, D'Artagnan, and Porthos in " Twenty 
Years After," that is not equalled by the earlier 
book, the reputed scenes of which have, to- some 
extent, to be taken on faith. 

In " Vingt Ans Apres," the scene shifts rapidly 
and constantly : from the Rue Tiquetonne, in Paris, 
to the more luxurious precincts of the Palais Royal ; 
countrywards to Compiegne, to Pierrefonds — 
which ultimately came into the possession of Por- 
thos; to England, even; and southward as far 
as Blois in Tonraine, near to which was the country 
estate of Athos. 

At the corner of the Rue Vaugirard, which passes 
the front of the Luxembourg Palace, and the Rue 
Cassette, is the wall of the Carmelite Friary, where 
D'Artagnan repaired to fulfil his duelling engage- 
ments with the three musketeers of the company 
of De Treville, after the incidents of the shoulder 




CARMELITE FRIARY, RUE VAUGIRARD 



X'THntversite (Siuartier 247 

of Athos, the baldric of Porthos, and the hand- 
kerchief of Aramis. 

Both sides of the river, and, indeed, the Cite 
itself, are alive with the association of the King's 
Musketeers and the Cardinal's Guards; so much 
so that one, with even a most superficial knowledge 
of Paris and the D'Artagnan romances, cannot fail 
to follow the shifting of the scenes from the neigh- 
bourhood of the Palais du Luxembourg, in " Les 
Trois Mousquetaires," to the neighbourhood of the 
Palais Royal, in " Vingt Ans Apres " and the 
" Vicomte de Bragelonne." 

In " Le Vicomte de Bragelonne," the fraternal 
mousquetaires take somewhat varying paths from 
those which they pursued in the first two volumes 
of the series. Porthos and Athos had arrived at 
distinction and wealth, and surrounded themselves 
accordingly ; though, when they came to Paris, they 
were doubtless frequenters — at times — of their 
old haunts, but they had perforce to live up to their 
exalted stations. 

With D'Artagnan and Aramis this was not so 
true. D'Artagnan, it would seem, could not leave 
his beloved Palais Royal quarter, though his lodg- 
ings in the hotel in the Rue Tiquetonne could have 
been in no way luxurious, judging from present- 
day appearances. 



248 H)uma6' ©arts 

In the Universite quarter, running squarely up 
from the Seine is a short, unpretentious, though 
not unlovely, street — the Rue Guenegard. 

It runs by the Hotel de la Monnaie, and em- 
bouches on the Quai Conti, but if you ask for it from 
the average stroller on the quais, he will reply that 
he never heard of it. 

It was here, however, at " Au Grand Roi Charle- 
magne," " a respectable inn," that Athos lived dur- 
ing his later years. 

In the course of three hundred years this inn has 
disappeared, — if it ever existed, — though there 
are two hotels, now somewhat decrepit, on the short 
length of the street. 

Perhaps it was one of these, — the present Hotel 
de France, for instance, — but there are no exist- 
ing records to tell us beyond doubt that this is so. 

There is another inn which Dumas mentions in 
" The Forty-Five Guardsmen," not so famous, and 
not traceable to-day, but his description of it is 
highly interesting and amusing. 

" Near the Porte Buci," says Chapter VII. of the 
book before mentioned, " where we must now trans- 
port our readers, to follow some of their acquaint- 
ances, and to make new ones, a hum, like that in 
a beehive at sunset, was heard proceeding from a 
house tinted rose colour, and ornamented with blue 



%'ilinivctsitc (Sluartter 249 

and white pointings, which was known by the sign 
of * The Sword of the Brave ChevaHer,' and which 
was an immense inn, recently built in this new 
quarter. This house was decorated to suit all tastes. 
On the entablature was painted a representation of 
a combat between an archangel and a dragon 
breathing flame and smoke, and in which the artist, 
animated by sentiments at once heroic and pious, 
had depicted in the hands of * the brave chevalier,' 
not a sword, but an immense cross, with which he 
hacked in pieces the unlucky dragon, of which the 
bleeding pieces were seen lying on the ground. 
At the bottom of the picture crowds of spectators 
were represented raising their arms to heaven, while 
from above angels were extending over the chevalier 
laurels and palms. Then, as if to prove that he 
could paint in every style, the artist had grouped 
around gourds, grapes, a snail on a rose, and two 
rabbits, one white and the other gray. 

" Assuredly the proprietor must have been diffi- 
cult to please, if he were not satisfied, for the artist 
had filled every inch of space — there was scarcely 
room to have added a caterpillar. In spite, how- 
ever, of this attractive exterior, the hotel did not 
prosper — it was never more than half full, though 
it was large and comfortable. Unfortunately, from 
its proximity to the Pre-aux-Clercs, it was fre- 



250 Dumas' parts 

quented by so many persons either going or ready 
to fight, that those more peaceably disposed avoided 
it. Indeed, the cupids with which the interior was 
decorated had been ornamented with moustaches in 
charcoal by the habitues; and Dame Fournichon, 
the landlady, always affirmed that the sign had 
brought them ill-luck, and that, had her wishes been 
attended to, and the painting represented more 
pleasing things, such as the rose-tree of love sur- 
rounded by flaming hearts, all tender couples would 
have flocked to them. 

" M. Fournichon, however, stuck to his sign, and 
replied that he preferred fighting men, and that one 
of them drank as much as six lovers." 

Dumas' reference to this curiously disposed 
" happy family " calls to mind the anecdote which 
he recounts in " The Taking of the Bastille," con- 
cerning salamanders : 

" The famous trunk, which had now been digni- 
fied with the name of desk, had become, thanks 
to its vastness, and the numerous compartments 
with which Pitou had decorated its interior, a sort 
of Noah's ark, containing a couple of every species 
of climbing, crawling, or flying reptiles. There 
were lizards, adders, ant-eaters, beetles, and frogs, 
which reptiles became so much dearer to Pitou from 



X'lUniversite (Siuartter 251 

their being the cause of his being subjected to pun- 
ishment more or less severe. 

" It was in his walks during the week that Pitou 
made collections for his menagerie. He had wished 
for salamanders, which were very popular at Villers- 
Cotterets, being the crest of Frangois I., and who 
had them sculptured on every chimneypiece in the 
chateau. He had succeeded in obtaining them; 
only one thing had strongly preoccupied his mind, 
and he ended by placing this thing among the num- 
ber of those which were beyond his intelligence ; it 
was, that he had constantly found in the water 
these reptiles which poets have pretended exist only 
in fire. This circumstance had given to Pitou, who 
was a lad of precise mind, a profound contempt for 
poets." 

Here, at " The Sword of the Brave Chevalier," 
first met the " Forty-Five Guardsmen." In the 
same street is, or was until recently, a modernized 
and vulgarized inn of similar name, which was more 
likely to have been an adaption from the pages 
of Dumas than a direct descendant of the original, 
if it ever existed. It is the Hotel la Tremouille, 
near the Luxembourg, that figures in the pages of 
" Les Trois Mousquetaires," but the hotel of the 
Due de Treville, in the Rue du Vieux-Colombier, 



252 Dumas' Paris 

has disappeared in a rebuilding or widening ol 
this street, which runs from the Place de St. Sul- 
pice to the Place de la Croix-Rouge. 

All these places centre around that famous affaire 
which took place before the Carmelite establishment 
on the Rue Vaugirard : that gallant sword-play of 
Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, — helped by the not 
unwilling D' Artagnan, — against Richelieu's min- 
ions, headed by Jussac. 

Within the immediate neighbourhood, too, is 
much of the locale of " Les Trois Mousquetaires." 
Here the four friends themselves lodged, " just 
around the corner, within two steps of the Luxem- 
bourg," though Porthos more specifically claimed 
his residence as in the Rue de Vieux-Colombier. 
" That is my abode," said he, as he proudly pointed 
to its gorgeous doorway. 

The Hotel de Chevreuse of "la Frondeuse 
duchesse" famed alike in history and the pages 
of Dumas, is yet to be seen in somewhat changed 
form at No. 201 Boulevard St. Germain; its gar- 
den cut away by the Boulevard Raspail. 

At No. 12 or 14 Rue des Fossoyeurs, beside the 
Pantheon, — still much as it was of yore, — was 
D'Artagnan's own " sort of a garret." One may 
not be able to exactly place it, but any of the de- 



%'mnivcvsitc (Sluartter 253 

crepitly picturesque houses will answer the descrip- 
tion. 



It is a wonderfully varied and interesting collec- 
tion of buildings which is found on the height of 
Ste. Genevieve, overlooking the Jardin and Palais 
du Luxembourg: the hybrid St. Etienne du Mont, 
the pagan Pantheon, the tower of the ancient 
Abbaye de Ste. Genevieve, and the Bibliotheque, 
which also bears the name of Paris's patron 
saint. 

The old abbey must have had many and varied 
functions, if history and romance are to be believed, 
and to-day its tower and a few short lengths of 
wall, built into the Lycee Henri Quatre, are all 
that remain, unless it be that the crypt and dungeons, 
of which one reads in " Chicot the Jester," are still 
existent. Probably they are, but, if so, they have 
most likely degenerated into mere lumber-rooms. 

The incident as given by Dumas relates briefly 
to the plot of the Guises to induce Charles IX., on 
the plea of some religious ceremony, to enter one 
of the monkish caches, and there compel him to 
Sign his abdication. The plot, according to the 
novelist, was frustrated by the ingenious Chi- 
cot. 

At all events, the ensemble to-day is one most 



254 H)umas' parts 

unusual, and the whole locality literally reeks with 
the associations of tradition. 

Architecturally it is a jumble, good in parts, but 
again shocking in other parts. 

The figlise St. Etienne du Mont is a weird con- 
trast of architectural style, but its interior is truly 
beautiful, and on the wall near the south transept 
are two tablets, on which one may read the facts 
concerning Ste. Genevieve, which likely enough 
have for the moment been forgotten by most of 
us. 

The old abbey must have been a delightful place, 
in spite of the lurid picture which Dumas draws 
of it. 

Probably in none of Dumas' romances is there 
more lively action than in " The Queen's Neck- 
lace." The characters are in a continual migration 
between one and another of the faubourgs. Here, 
again, Dumas does not forget or ignore the Lux- 
embourg and its environment. He seems, indeed, 
to have a special fondness for its neighbourhood. 
It was useful to- him in most of the Valois series, 
and doubly so in the D'Artagnan romances. 

Beausire, one of the thieves who sought to steal 
the famous necklace, " took refuge in a small cabaret 
in the Luxembourg quarter." The particular 



OL'mntversite (auartier 255 

cabaret is likely enough in existence to-day, as the 
event took place but a hundred years ago, and 
Dumas is known tO' have " drawn from life " even 
his pen-portraits of the locale of his stories. At 
any rate, there is many a cabaret near the Luxem- 
bourg which might fill the bill. 

The gardens of the Luxembourg were another 
favourite haunt of the characters of Dumas' ro- 
mances, and in " The Queen's Necklace " they are 
made use of again, this time, as usual, as a suitable 
place for a promenade or a rendezvous of the fair 
Oliva, who so much resembled Marie Antoinette. 

~ Like the Rue du Helder, celebrated in " The Cor- 
sican Brothers," the Rue de Lille, where lived, at 
No. 29, De Franchi's friend, Adrien de Boissy, is 
possessed of an air of semi-luxuriousness, or, at any 
rate, of a certain middle-class comfort. 

It lies on the opposite side of the Seine from the 
river side of the Louvre, and runs just back of 
the site formerly occupied by the Due de Mont- 
morenci, where was held the gorgeous ceremony 
of the marriage of the Marquis St. Luc, of which 
one reads in " Chicot the Jester." 

There is not much of splendour or romance about 
the present-day Rue de Lille; indeed, it is rather 
commonplace, but as Dumas places the particular 



256 2)ttmas' ipatis 

house in which De Boissy lived with definiteness, 
and, moreover, in that it exists to-day practically 
unaltered, there seems every good reason why it 
should be catalogued here. 




. r^'.a.m. 










•l-.Vd.* 



iS.i^i-*i>-i. 




I 

iFran9ois I., ij^XlV., 1660-/670 ; (6) Napoleon I., 




THE BUILDERS OF THE LOUVRE 



(I) Fran9ois 1., 1^46; (2) Catherine de Medici, i^dd-jjjS ; (3) Catherine de Medici, 1^64 (destroyed at the Commune) ; (4) Louis XI 11., /J24 : (5) Louis XIV,, 1660-1O70 : (6) Napolci 
j8o6; (7) Louis XVIIL, /S/6; (8) Napoleon III, /Sj2-/Sjy ; (9) Napoleon III, /S6j-/S6S. 



J-f 




;ifI,.l|ijg:r,w:HT 



CHAPTER XIII. 



THE LOUVRE 



^^ Paris renferme beaucoup de palais j mais le njrai palais 
de PariSj le vrai palais de la France^ tout le monde Va 
noTnfftS^ — c'est le Louvre.^'' 

jr TPON the first appearance of " Marguerite 
# / de Valois," a critic writing in Black- 
wood's Magazine, has chosen to commend 
Dumas' directness of plot and purpose in a manner 
which every lover of Dumas and student of history 
will not fail to appreciate. He says : " Dumas, 
according to his custom, introduces a vast array 
of characters, for the most part historical, all spir- 
itedly drawn and well sustained. In various respects 
the author may be held up as an example to our 
own history-spoilers, and self-styled writers of his- 
torical romance. One does not find him profaning 
public edifices by causing all sorts of absurdities 
to pass, and of twaddle to be spoken, within their 
precincts; neither does he make his king and 
beggar, high-born dame and private soldier use 

257 



25S Dumas' iparis 

the very same language, all equally tame, colourless, 
and devoid of character. The spirited and varied 
dialogue, in which his romances abound, illustrates 
and brings out the qualities and characteristics of 
his actors, and is not used for the sole purpose of 
making a chapter out of what would be better told 
in a page. In many instances, indeed, it would 
be difficult for him to tell his story, by the barest 
narrative, in fewer words than he does by pithy 
and pointed dialogue." 

No edifice in Paris itself, nor, indeed, in all 
France, is more closely identified with the characters 
and plots of Dumas' romances than the Louvre. 
In the Valois cycle alone, the personages are con- 
tinually flocking and stalking thither; some mere 
puppets, — walking gentlemen and ladies, — but 
many more, even, who are personages so very real 
that even in the pages of Dumas one forgets that it 
is romance pure and simple, and is almost ready 
to accept his word as history. This it is not, as is 
well recognized, but still it is a pleasant manner 
of bringing before the omnivorous reader many 
facts which otherwise he might ignore or perhaps 
overlook. 

It really is not possible to particularize all the 
action of Dumas' romances which centred around 
the Louvre. To do so would be to write the 



Ube OLouvre 259 

mediaeval history of the famous building, or to pro- 
duce an analytical index to the works of Dumas 
which would somewhat approach in bulk the cele- 
brated Chinese encyclopaedia. 

We learn from " Le Vicomte de Bragelonne " 
of D'Artagnan's great familiarity with the life 
which went on in the old chateau of the Louvre. 
" I will tell you where M. d'Artagnan is," said 
Raoul ; " he is now in Paris ; when on duty, he 
is to be met at the Louvre ; when not so, in the Rue 
des Lombards." 

This describes the situation exactly: when the 
characters of the D'Artagnan and the Valois ro- 
mances are not actually within the precincts of the 
Louvre, they have either just left it or are about 
to return thither, or some momentous event is being 
enacted there which bears upon the plot. 

Perhaps the most dramatic incident in connection 
with the Louvre mentioned by Dumas, was that 
of the massacre of St. Bartholomew's night, " that 
bloody deed which culminated from the great strug- 
gle which devastated France in the latter part of 
the sixteenth century." 

Dumas throws in his lot with such historians 
as Ranke and So-ldain, who prefer to think that 
the massacre which took place on the fete-day of 
St. Bartholomew was not the result of a long pre- 



26o 2)umas' parts 

meditated plot, but was rather the fruit of a 
momentary fanatical terror aroused by the unsuc- 
cessful attempt on the life of Coligny. 

This aspect is apart from the question. The 
principal fact with which the novelist and our- 
selves are concerned is that the event took place 
much as stated : that it was from the Louvre that 
the plot — if plot it were — emanated, and that 
the sounding bell of St. Germain I'Auxerrois did, 
on that fateful night, indicate to those present in the 
Louvre the fact that the bloody massacre had begun. 

The fabric itself — the work of many hands, at 
the instigation of so many minds — is an enduring 
monument to the fame of those who projected it, 
or who' were memorialized thereby: Philippe- Au- 
guste, Marie de Medici, Francois L, Charles IX., 
Henri IV., Louis XIV., Napoleon L, — who did 
but little, it is true, — and Napoleon III. — who 
did much, and did it badly. 

Besides history, bloody deeds, and intrigue, there 
is also much of sentiment to be gathered from an 
observation of its walls; as witness the sculptures 
and decorations of Goujon and Lescot, the inter- 
laced monogram G. H., of Henri and Gabrielle 
d'Estrees, and the superimposed crescents of the 
fair Diane de Poitiers. But such romances as these 
are best read in the pages of Dumas. 



XTbe %o\xvtc 261 

" To the French the Louvre is more than a 
palace; it is a sanctuary," said an enthusiastic 
Frenchman. As such it is a shrine to be wor- 
shipped by itself, though it is pardonable to wish 
to know to-day just where and when the historic 
events of its career took place. 

One can trace the outline, in white marble, of 
the ancient Chateau du Louvre, in the easterly 
courtyard of the present establishment; can admire 
the justly celebrated eastern colonnade, though so 
defective was the architect in his original plans 
that it overlaps the side walls of the connecting 
buildings some dozen or more feet; can follow 
clearly all the various erections of monarchs and 
eras, and finally contemplate the tiny columns set 
about in the garden of the Tuileries, which mark 
all that is left of that ambitious edifice. 

The best description of the Tuileries by Dumas 
comes into the scene in "The Count of Monte 
Cristo," when Villefort, — who shares with Dan- 
glars and Fernand the distinction of being the vil- 
lain of the piece, — after travelling with all speed 
from Marseilles to Paris, " penetrates the two or 
three apartments which precede it, and enters the 
small cabinet of the Tuileries with the arched win- 
dow, so well known as having been the favourite 



262 Bumas' Paris 

cabinet of Napoleon and Louis XVIIL, as also that 
of Louis-Philippe. 

" There, in this closet, seated before a walnut- 
tree table he had brought with him from Hartwell, 
and to which, from one of those fancies not un- 
common to great people, he was particularly- 
attached, the king, Louis XVIIL, was carelessly 
listening to a man of fifty or fifty-two years of 
age, with gray hair, aristocratic bearing, and ex- 
ceedingly gentlemanly attire, whilst he was making 
a note in a volume of Horace, Gryphius's edition, 
which was much indebted to the sagacious observa- 
tions of the philosophical monarch." 

Of course, an author of to-day would have ex- 
pressed it somewhat differently, but at the time in 
which Dumas wrote, the little cabinet did exist, 
and up to the time of the destruction of the palace, 
at the Commune, was doubtless as much of a show- 
place in its way as is the window of the Louvre 
from which Charles IX. was supposed to have fired 
upon the fleeing Huguenots — with this difference : 
that the cabinet had a real identity, while the win- 
dow in question has been more recently ascertained 
as not having been built at the time of the event. 

Some one has mentioned Paris, the forgetter, as 
if modem Paris and its gay life — for assuredly it 



XTbe Xoupre 263 

is gay, regardless of what the blase folk may say 
or think — had entirely blotted out from its memory 
the horrors of St. Bartholomew's night, the trage- 
dies of La Roquette, the Co-nciergerie, or the 
Bastille. 

This is so in a measure, however, though one 
has only to cross the square which lies before Les 
Halles, La Tour St. Jacques, or Notre Dame, to 
recall most vividly the tragedies which have before 
been enacted there. 

The Louvre literally reeks with the intrigue and 
bloodshed of political and religious warfare; and 
Dumas' picture of the murder of the admiral, and 
his version of the somewhat apocryphal incident of 
Charles IX. potting at the Protestant victims, with 
a specially made and garnished firearm, is sufficiently 
convincing, when once read, to suggest the recol- 
lections, at least, of the heartless act. From the 
Louvre it is but a step — since the Tuileries has 
been destroyed — to the Place de la Concorde. 

When this great square, now given over to bird- 
fanciers, automobilists, and photograph-sellers, was 
first cleared, it was known as the Place de la Revo- 
lution. In the later volumes of the Valois romances 
one reads of a great calendar of scenes and inci- 
dents which were consummated here. It is too large 
a list to even catalogue, but one will recollect that 



2 64 2)umas' IPads 

here, in this statue surrounded place, with playing 
fountains glittering in the sunlight, is buried under a 
brilliance — very foreign to its former aspect — many 
a grim tragedy of profound political purport. 

It was here that Louis XVI. said, " I die inno- 
cent; I forgive my enemies, and pray God to avert 
his vengeance for my blood, and to bless my peo^ 
pie." To-day one sees only the ornate space, the 
voitures and automobiles, the tricolour floating high 
on the Louvre, and this forgetful Paris, brilliant 
with sunlight, green with trees, beautified by good 
government, which offers in its kiosks, cafes, and 
theatres the fulness of the moment at every turn. 
Paris itself truly forgets, if one does not. 

The Louvre as it is known to-day is a highly 
intricate composition. Its various parts have grown, 
not under one hand, but from a common root, until 
it blossomed forth in its full glory when the west- 
ern front of Catherine de Medici took form. 
Unfortunately, with its disappearance at the Com- 
mune the completeness of this elaborate edifice went 
for ever. 

One is apt to overlook the fact that the old 
Louvre, the ancienne Palais du Louvre, was a medi- 
aeval battlemented and turreted structure, which 
bore little resemblance to the Louvre of to-day, or 




THE GARDENS OF THE TUILERIES 



Zbc Xottvre 265 

even that of Charles, Henri, Catherine, or Mar- 
guerite, of whom Dumas wrote in the Valois ro- 
mances. 

The general ground-plan of the two distinct por- 
tions is the same, except for some minor additions 
of Napoleon I. and the connecting links built by- 
Napoleon IIL, and many of the apartments are 
of course much the same, but there has been a 
general laying out of the courts anew, and tree- 
planting and grading of the streets and quais in the 
immediate neighbourhood; so much so that almost 
the entire aspect is changed. In spite of its com- 
positeness, there is a certain aspect of uniformity 
of outline, though not of excellence of design. 

The only relics of the Palace of the Tuileries are 
the colonnettes set about in the garden and sur- 
mounted by gilded balls. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



THE PALAIS ROYAL 



/T seems hardly necessary to more than men- 
tion the name of the Palais Royal, in con- 
nection with either the life or the writ- 
ings of Alexandre Dumas, to induce a line of 
thought which is practically limitless. It was identi- 
fied with Dumas' first employment in the capital, 
and it has been the scene of much of the action of 
both the D'Artagnan and the Valois romances. 

More than all else, however, though one is apt 
to overlook it somewhat, it is so closely identified 
with Richelieu that it is difficult to separate it from 
any event of French political history of the period. 

It was built by Richelieu in 1629, on the site oc- 
cupied by the Hotels de Mercoeur and Rambouillet, 
and was originally intended to have borne the name 
of Hotel Richelieu. Toward 1634 it was enlarged, 
and was known as the Palais Cardinal. Finally it 
was presented, in 1642, to Louis XIIL, and at his 
death came to Anne of Austria, when the royal 

266 



Ube ipalais IRo^al 267 

family removed thither and it became known as the 
Palais Royal. 

The incident of the flight of the royal family 
and Mazarin to St. Germain is one of the historic 
and dramatic incidents which Dumas used as one of 
the events in which D'Artagnan participated. 

The court never returned to make use of the 
Palais Royal as a royal residence, and it became 
the refuge of Henriette de France, Queen of Eng- 
land and widow of Charles I. Thirty years later 
Louis XIV., who had fled from its walls when a 
child, gave, it to his nephew Philippe d'Orleans, 
Due de Qiartres. 

It was during the Regence that the famous fetes 
of the Palais Royal were organized, — they even ex- 
tended to what the unsympathetic have called or- 
gies, — but it is certain that no town residences 
of kings were ever as celebrated for their splendid 
functions as was the Palais Royal in the seven- 
teenth century. 

In 1763 a fire brought about certain reconstruc- 
tions at the expense of the city of Paris. In 1781, 
it became again the prey of fire; and Philippe- 
]&galite, who was then Due de Chartres, constructed 
the three vast galleries which surround the Palais 
of to-day. 

The boutiques of the galleries were let to mer- 



268 Dumas' Paris 

chants of all manner of foibles, and it became the 
most lively quarter of Paris. 

The public adopted the galleries as fashionable 
promenades, which became, for the time, " un ba^ar 
europeen et un rendez-vous d'affaires et de galan-- 
terie" 

It was in 1783 that the Due d'Orleans constructed 
'"'' une salle de spectacle,'' which to-day is the Theatre 
du Palais Royal, and in the middle of the garden 
a cirque which ultimately came to be transformed 
into a restaurant. 

The purely theatrical event of the history of the 
Palais Royal came on the 13th of July, 1789, when 
at midday — as the coup of a petit canon rang out 
— a young unknown a^ocat, Camille Desmoulins, 
mounted a chair and addressed the throng of prom- 
enaders in a thrilling and vibrant voice : 

"" Citoyens, j' arrive de Versailles! — ■ Necker is 
fled and the Baron Breteuil is in his place. Breteuil 
is one of those who have demanded the head of 
Mirabeau . . . there remains but one resource, and 
that * to arms ' and to wear the cockade that we 
may be known. Quelle couleur voulez-vous? " 

With almost a common accord the tricolour was 
adopted — and the next day the Bastille fell. 

Dumas' account of the incident, taken from " The 
Taking of the Bastille," is as follows : 




The Orleans Bureau, Palais Royal 



XTbe Palais IRopal 269 

" During this time the procession kept on ad- 
vancing; it had moved obliquely to the left, and had 
gone down the Rue Montmartre to the Place des 
Victoires. When it reached the Palais Royal some 
great impediment prevented its passing on. A troop 
of men with green, leaves in their hats were shout- 
ing ' To arms ! ' 

" It was necessary to reconnoitre. Were these 
men who blocked up the Rue Vivienne friends or 
enemies ? Green was the colour of the Count d' Ar- 
tois. Why then these green cockades ? 

" After a minute's conference all was explained. 

" On learning the dismissal of Necker, a young 
man had issued from the Cafe Foy, had jumped 
upon a table in the garden of the Palais Royal, and, 
taking a pistol from his breast, had cried ' To arms ! ' 

" On hearing this cry, all the persons who were 
walking there had assembled around him, and had 
shouted ' To arms ! ' 

" We have already said that all the foreign regi- 
ments had been collected around Paris. One might 
have imagined that it was an invasion by the Aus- 
trians. The names of these regiments alarmed the 
ears of all Frenchmen; they were Reynac, Salis 
Samade, Diesbach, Esterhazy, Roemer; the very 
naming of them was sufficient to make the crowd 
understand that they were the names of enemies. 



^10 S)umas' f>att0 

The young man named them; he announced that 
the Swiss were encamped in the Champs Elysees, 
with four pieces of artillery, and that they were to 
enter Paris the same night, preceded by the drag- 
oons, commanded by Prince Lambesq. He pro- 
posed a new cockade which was not theirs, snatched 
a leaf from a chestnut-tree and placed it in the 
band of his hat. Upon the instant every one present 
followed his example. Three thousand persons had 
in ten minutes unleaved the trees of the Palais 
Royal. 

" That morning no one knew the name of that 
young man; in the evening it was in every mouth. 

** That young man's name was Camille Des- 
moulins." 

After 1793 the Palais Royal was converted, by 
decree, into the Palais et Jardin de la Revolution, 
and reunited to the domains of the state. Napo- 
leon I. granted its use to the Tribunal for its seances, 
and Lucien Bonaparte inhabited it for the " Hun- 
dred Days." In 1830 Louis-Philippe, Due d'Or- 
leans, gave there a fete in honour of the King of 
Naples, who had come to pay his respects to the 
King of France. Charles X. assisted as an invited 
guest at the function, but one month after he had 
inhabited it as king. 



Zhc palat0 IRopal 271 

Under Napoleon III. the Palais Royal was the 
residence of Prince Jerome, the uncle of the em- 
peror, afterward that of his son the Prince Napo- 
leon, when the iieur-de-lis sculptured on the fagade 
gave way before escutcheons bearing the imperial 
eagles, which in turn have since given way to the 
Republican device of " '48 " — " Liberte, figalite, 
Fraternite." 

It is with a remarkable profusion of detail — for 
Dumas, at any rate — that the fourteenth chapter 
of " The Conspirators " opens. 

It is a veritable guide-book phraseology and con- 
ciseness, which describes the streets of the Palais 
Royal quarter : 

" The evening oif the same day, which was Sun- 
day, toward eight o'clock, at the moment when a 
considerable group of men and women, assembled 
around a street singer, who was playing at the same 
time the cymbals with his knees and the tambourine 
with his hands, obstructed the entrance to the Rue 
de Valois, a musketeer and two of the light horse 
descended a back staircase of the Palais Royal, and 
advanced toward the Passage du Lycee, which, as 
every one knows, opened on to that street ; but seeing 
the crowd which barred the way, the three soldiers 
stopped and appeared to take counsel. The result 



272 Dumas' pads 

of their deliberation was doubtless that they must 
take another route, for the musketeer, setting the 
example Oif a new manoeuvre, threaded the Cour 
des Fontaines, turned the corner of the Rue des 
Bons Enfants, and, walking rapidly, — though he 
was extremely corpulent, — arrived at No. 22, 
which opened as by enchantment at his approach, 
and closed again on him and his two companions. 

"... The crowd dispersed. A great many 
men left the circle, singly, or two and two, turning 
toward each other with an imperceptible gesture of 
the hand, some by the Rue de Valois, some by the 
Cour des Fontaines, some by the Palais Royal itself, 
thus surrounding the Rue des Bons Enfants, which 
seemed to be the centre O'f the rendezvous." 

The locality has not changed greatly since the 
times of which Dumas wrote, and if one would see 
for himself this Rue de Bons Enfants, Numero 22, 
and try to find out how the Regent of France was 
able to climb over the roof-tops to the Palais Royal, 
for a wager, he may still do so, for apparently the 
roof-tops have changed but little. The especial 
connection of the Rue des Bons Enfants with liter- 
ature is perhaps Sylvestre's establishment, which 
will, for a price, sell you almost any French celeb- 
rity's autograph, be he king, prince, painter, or 
litterateur. 



Ubc Palais IRo^al 273 

In the " Vicomte de Bragelonne " there is a 
wonderfully interesting chapter, which describes 
Mazarin's gaming-party at the Palais Royal. 

In that it enters somewhat more into detail than 
is usual with Dumas, it appears worth quoting here, 
if only for its description of the furnishing of the 
salle in which the event took place, and its most 
graphic and truthful picture of the great cardinal 
himself : 

'* In a large chamber of the Palais Royal, cov- 
ered with a dark-coloured velvet, which threw into 
strong relief the gilded frames of a great number 
of magnificent pictures, on the evening of the arrival 
of the two Frenchmen, the whole court was assem- 
bled before the alcove of M. le Cardinal de Mazarin, 
who gave a party, for the purposes of play, to the 
king and queen. A small screen separated three 
prepared tables. At one of these tables the king and 
the two queens were seated. Louis XIV., placed 
opposite to the young queen, his wife, smiled upon 
her with an expression of real happiness. Anne of 
Austria held the cards against the cardinal, and 
her daughter-in-law assisted her in her game, when 
she was not engaged in smiling at her husband. 
As for the cardinal, who was reclining on his bed, 
his cards were held by the Comtesse de Soissons, 



274 Dumas' Paris 

and he watched them with an incessant look of in- 
terest and cupidity. 

" The cardinal had been painted by Bernouin ; 
but the rouge, which glowed only on his cheeks, 
threw into stronger contrast the sickly pallor of the 
rest of his countenance and the shining yellow of 
his brow. His eyes alone acquired a more lively 
expression from this auxiliary, and upon those sick 
man's eyes were, from time to time, turned the 
uneasy looks of the king, the queen, and the court- 
iers. The fact is, that the two eyes of Mazarin 
were the stars more or less brilliant in which the 
France of the seventeenth century read its destiny 
every evening and every morning. Monseigneur 
neither won nor lost ; he was, therefore, neither gay 
nor sad. It was a stagnation in which, full of 
pity for him, Anne of Austria would not have 
willingly left him; but in order to attract the at- 
tention of the sick man by some brilliant stroke, 
she must have either won or lost. To win would 
have been dangerous, because Mazarin would have 
changed his indifference for an ugly grimace; to 
lose would likewise have been dangerous, because 
she must have cheated, and the Infanta, who watched 
her game, would, doubtless, have exclaimed against 
her partiality for Mazarin. Profiting by this calm, 
the courtiers were chatting. When not in a bad 



. Ube Palais IRoi^al 275 

humour, M. de Mazarin was a very debonnaire 
prince, and he, who prevented nobody from sing- 
ing, provided they paid, was not tyrant enough to 
prevent people from talking, provided they made 
up their minds to lose. They were chatting, then. 
At the first table, the king's younger brother, Philip, 
Due d'Anjou, was admiring his handsome face in 
the glass of a box. His favourite, the Chevalier 
de Lorraine, leaning over the fauteuil of the prince, 
was listening, with secret envy, to the Comte de 
Guiche, another of Philip's favourites, who was 
relating in choice terms the various vicissitudes of 
fortune of the royal adventurer, Charles 11. He 
told, as SO' many fabulous events, all the history of 
his peregrinations in Scotland, and his terrors when 
the enemy's party was so closely on his track; of 
nights passed in trees, and days passed in hunger 
and combats. By degrees, the fate of' the unfor- 
tunate king interested his auditors so greatly, that 
the play languished even at the royal table, and the 
young king, with a pensive look and downcast eye, 
followed, without appearing to give any attention 
to it, the smallest details of this Odyssey, very 
picturesquely related by the Comte de Guiche." 

Again mention of the Palais Royal enters into 
the action of "The Queen's Necklace." When 



2/6 Bttinas' Paris 

Madame de la Motte and her companioo were en 
route to Versailles by cabriolet, " they met a delay 
at the gates of the Palais Royal, where, in a court- 
yard, which had been thrown open, were a host 
of beggars crowding around fires which had been 
lighted there, and receiving soup, which the servants 
of M. le Due d'Orleans were distributing to them 
in earthen basins; and as in Paris a crowd collects 
to see everything, the number of the spectators of 
this scene far exceeded that of the actors. 

" Here, then, they were again obliged to stop, 
and, to their dismay, began to hear distinctly from 
behind loud cries of * Down with the cabriolet ! 
down with those that crush the poor ! ' 

" * Can it be that those cries are addressed to us ? ' 
said the elder lady to her companion. 

" * Indeed, madame, I fear so,' she replied. 

" * Have we, do you think, run over any one ? ' 

" * I am sure you have not.' 

" * To the magistrate ! to the magistrate ! ' cried 
several voices. 

" * What in heaven's name does it all mean ? ' 
said the lady. 

" ' The crowd reproaches you, madame, with 
having braved the police order which appeared this 
morning, prohibiting all cabriolets from driving 
through the streets until the spring.' " 



XTbe Palais IRo^al 277 

This must have been something considerable of 
an embargo* on pleasure, and one which would 
hardly obtain to-day, though asphalted pavements 
covered with a film of frost must offer untold dan- 
gers, as compared with the streets of Paris as they 
were then — in the latter years of the eighteenth 
century. 



CHAPTER XV. 



THE BASTILLE 



^^F^HE worshipper at the shrines made famous 
a by Dumas — no less than history — will 
look in vain for the prison of La Ro- 
quette, the Bastille, the hotel of the Due de Guise, 
at No. 12 Rue du Chaume, that of Coligny in the 
Rue de Bethusy, or of the Montmorencies, " near 
the Louvre." 

They existed, of course, in reality, as they did 
in the Valois romances, but to-day they have dis- 
appeared, and not even the '^ Commission des 
Monuments Historiques" has preserved a pictorial 
representation of the three latter. 

One of Dumas' most absorbing romances deals 
with the fateful events which culminated at the 
Bastille on the 14th Thermidor, 1789. "This 
monument, this seal of feudality, imprinted on the 
forehead of Paris," said Dumas, " was the Bas- 
tille," and those who know French history know 

that he wrote truly. 

278 



TLbc Bastille 279 

The action of " The Taking of the Bastille," so 
far as it deals with the actual assault upon it, is 
brief. So was the event itself. Dumas romances 
but little in this instance; he went direct to fact 
for his details. He says : 

" When once a man became acquainted with the 
Bastille, by order of the king, that man was for- 
gotten, sequestrated, interred, annihilated. . . . 

" Moreover, in France there was not only one 
Bastille; there were twenty other Bastilles, which 
were called Fort TEveque, St. Lazare, the Chatelet, 
the Conciergerie, Vincennes, the Castle of La Roche, 
the Castle of If, the Isles of St. Marguerite, Pigne- 
rolles, etc. 

" Only the fortress at the Gate St. Antoine was 
called the Bastille, as Rome was called the city. . . . 

" During nearly a whole century the governor- 
ship of the Bastille had continued in one and the 
same family. 

" The grandfather of this elect race was M. de 
Chateauneuf; his son Lavrilliere succeeded him, 
who, in turn, was succeeded by his grandson, St. 
Florentin. The dynasty became extinct in 1777. . . . 

" Among the prisoners, it will be recollected, the 
following were of the greatest note : 

" The Iron Mask, Lauzun, Latude. 



28o H)uma5' iparis 

" The Jesuits were connoisseurs ; for greater 
security they confessed the prisoners. 

" For greater security still, the prisoners were 
buried under supposititious names. 

" The Iron Mask, it will be remembered, was 
buried under the name of Marchiali. He had re- 
mained forty-five years in prison. 

" Lauzun remained there fourteen years. 

" Latude, thirty years. . . . 

" But, at all events, the Iron Mask and Lauzun 
had committed heinous crimes. 

" The Iron Mask, whether brother or not of 
Louis XIV., it is asserted, resembled King 
Louis XIV. so strongly, that it was almost im- 
possible to distinguish the one from the other. 

" It is exceedingly imprudent to dare to resemble 
a king. 

" Lauzun had been very near marrying, or did 
actually marry, the Grande Mademoiselle. 

" It is exceedingly imprudent to dare to marry 
the niece of King Louis XIIL, the granddaughter 
of Henri IV. 

" But Latude, poor devil, what had he done ? 

"He had dared to fall in love with Mile. 
Poisson, Dame de Pompadour, the king's mistress. 

" He had written a note to her. 

" This note, which a respectable woman would 



Ube Bastille 281 

have sent back to the man who wrote it, was handed 
by Madame de Pompadour to M. de Sartines, the 
heutenant-general of poHce." 

" To the Bastille ! " was the cry upon which 
Dumas built up his story. 

"* To the Bastille!' 

" Only that it was a senseless idea, as the soldiers 
had remarked, that the Bastille could be taken. 

" The Bastille had provisions, a g-arrison, artil- 
lery. 

" The Bastille had walls, which were fifteen feet 
thick at their summit, and forty at their base. 

" The Bastille had a governor, whose name was 
De Launay, who had stored thirty thousand pounds 
of gunpowder in his cellars, and who had sworn, 
in case of being surprised by a coup de main, to 
blow up the Bastille, and with it half the Faubourg 
St. Antoine." 

Dumas was never more chary of tiresome de- 
scription than in the opening chapters of this book. 
Chapter XVI. opens as follows : 

" We will not describe the Bastille — it would 
be useless. 

" It lives as an eternal image, both in the memory 
of the old and in the imagination of the young. 

" We shall content ourselves with merely stating, 
that, seen from the boulevard, it presented, in front 



282 Dumas' ipatis 

of the square then called Place de la Bastille, two 
twin towers, while its two fronts ran parallel with 
the banks of the canal which now exists. 

" The entrance to the Bastille was defended, in 
the first place, by a guard-house, then by two lines 
of sentinels, and besides these by two drawbridges. 

" After having passed through these several ob- 
stacles, you came to the courtyard of the goivem- 
ment-house — that is to say, the residence of the 
governor. 

" From this courtyard a gallery led to the ditches 
of the Bastille. 

" At this other entrance, which opened upon the 
ditches, was a drawbridge, a guard-house, and an 
iron gate." 

Then follow some pages of incident and action, 
which may be fact or may be fiction. The detail 
which comes after is picturesque and necessary to 
the plot: 

" The interior court, in which the governor was 
waiting for Billot, was the courtyard which served 
as a promenade to the prisoners. It was guarded 
by eight towers — that is to say, by eight giants. 
No window opened intO' it. Never did the sun 
shine on its pavement, which was damp and almost 
muddy. It might have been thought the bottom of 
an immense well. 



Ube JBasttUe 283 

" In this courtyard was a clock, supported by 
figures representing enchained captives, which 
measured the hours, from which fell the regular 
and slow sounds of the minutes as they passed by, 
as in a dungeon the droppings from the ceiling eat 
into the pavement slabs on which they fall. 

" At the bottom of this well, the prisoner, lost 
amid the abyss of stone, for a moment contemplated 
its cold nakedness, and soon asked to be allowed to 
return to his room. . . . 

" At the Bastille, all the places were sold to the 
highest bidder, from that of the governor himself, 
down to that of the scullion. The governor of the 
Bastille was a gaoler on a grand scale, an eating- 
house keeper wearing epaulets, who added to his 
salary of sixty thousand livres sixty thousand more, 
which he extorted and plundered. . . . 

" M. de Launay, in point of avarice, far surpassed 
his predecessors. This might, perhaps, have arisen 
from his having paid more for the place, and hav- 
ing foreseen that he would not remain in it so long 
as they did. 

" He fed his whole house at the expense of his 
prisoners. He had reduced the quantity of firing, 
and doubled the hire of furniture in each room. 

" He had the right of bringing yearly into Paris 
a hundred pipes of wine, free of duty. He sold 



284 Dumas' parts 

his right to a tavern-keeper, who brought in wines 
of excellent quality. Then, with a tenth part of this 
duty, he purchased the vinegar with which he sup^ 
plied his prisoners." 

The rest of Dumas' treatment of the fall of the 
Bastille is of the historical kind. He does not 
blame De Launay for the fall, but by no means 
does he make a hero of him. 

" A flash of fire, lost in a cloud of smoke, crowned 
the summit of a tower; a detonation resounded; 
cries of pain were heard issuing from the closely 
pressed crowd ; the first cannon-shot had been fired 
from the Bastille; the first blood had been spilled. 
The battle had commenced. . . . 

" On hearing the detonation we have spoken of, 
the two soldiers whoi were still watching M. de 
Launay threw themselves upon him ; a third snatched 
up the match, and then extinguished it by placing 
his heel upon it. 

" De Launay drew the sword which was con- 
cealed in his cane, and would have turned it against 
his own breast, but the soldiers seized it and snapped 
it in two. 

" He then felt that all he could do was to resign 
himself to the result ; he therefore tranquilly awaited 
it. 

" The people rush forward ; the garrison open 



Ube :fi5a0ttlle 285 

their arms to them; and the Bastille is taken by 
assault — by main force, without a capitulation. 

*' The reason for this was that, for more than a 
hundred years, the royal fortress had not merely 
imprisoned inert matter within its walls — it had 
imprisoned thought also. Thought had thrown 
down the walls of the Bastille, and the people en- 
tered by the breach." 

The life-history of the Bastille was more ex- 
tended than was commonly recalled. Still the great 
incident in its life covered but fifteen short days, — 
from the 30th June to the 14th July, 1789,— 
when it fell before the attack of the Revolutionists. 
There is rather vague markings in the pavement 
on the Boulevard Henri Quatre and the Rue St. 
Antoine, which suggest the former limits of this 
gruesome building. 

It were not possible to catalogue all the scenes 
of action celebrated or perpetuated by Alexandre 
Dumas. 

In his " Crimes Celebres " he — with great 
definiteness — pictures dark scenes which are known 
to all readers of history; from that terrible affair 
of the Cenci, which took place on the terrace of the 
Chateau de Rocca Petrella, in 1598, to the assassi- 
nation of Kotzebue by Karl Ludwig Sand in 18 19. 



286 2)ttma0' Paris 

Not all of these crimes deal with Paris, nor with 
France. 

The most notable was the poisoning affair of the 
Marquise de Brinvilliers (1676), who was forced 
to make the " amende honorable " after the usual 
manner, on the Parvis du Notre Dame, that little 
tree-covered place just before the west faqade of the 
cathedral. 

The Chevalier Gaudin de Ste. Croix, captain of 
the Regiment de Tracy, had been arrested in the 
name of the king, by process of the '' lettre de 
cachet" and forthwith incarcerated in the Bastille, 
which is once more made use of by Dumas, though 
in this case, as in many others, it is historic fact 
as well. The story, which is more or less one of 
conjugal and filial immorality, as well as political 
intrigue, shifts its scene once and again to the Cul- 
de-sac des Marchands des Chevaux, in the Place 
Maubert, to the Foret de I'Aigue — within four 
leagues of Compiegne, the Place du Chatelet, the 
Conciergerie, and the Bastille. 

Here, too, Dumas' account of the " question by 
water," or, rather, the notes on the subject, which 
accompanied the first (1839) edition of " Les 
Crimes Celebres," form interesting, if rather hor- 
rible, reading. 



tCbe JSastille 2S7 

Not alone in the Bastille was this horrible torture 
practised, but in most of the prisons of the time. 

'' Pour la ' question ordinaire^ quatre coquemars 
pleins d'eaUj et contenant chacun deux pintes et 
demi, et pour ' la question extraordinaire ' huit de 
meme grandeur!' 

This was poured into the victim through a funnel, 
which entered the mouth, and sooner or later 
drowned or stifled him or her, or induced con- 
fession. 

The final act and end of the unnatural Marquise 
de Brinvilliers took place at the Place de la Greve, 
which before and since was the truly celebrated 
place of many noted crimes, though in this case 
it was justice that was meted out. 

As a sort of sequel to " The Conspirators," 
Dumas adds " A Postscriptum," wherein is re- 
counted the arrest of Richelieu, as foreordained 
by Mile, de Valois. He was incarcerated in the 
Bastille; but his captivity was but a new triumph 
for the crafty churchman. 

" It was reported that the handsome prisoner had 
obtained permission to walk on the terrace of the 
Bastille. The Rue St. Antoine was filled with most 
elegant carriages, and became, in twenty- four hours, 
the fashionable promenade. The regent — who de- 
clared that he had proofs of the treason of M. de 



288 2)ttmas' Paris 

Richelieu, sufficient to lose him four heads if he 
had them — would not, however, risk his popularity 
with the fair sex by keeping him long in prison. 
Richelieu, again at liberty, after a captivity of three 
months, was more brilliant and more sought after 
than ever; but the closet had been walled up, and 
Mile, de Valois became Duchesse de Modena." 

Not only in the " Vicomte de Bragelonne " and 
" The Taking of the Bastille " does Dumas make 
mention of " The Man in the Iron Mask," but, to 
still greater length, in the supplementary volume, 
called in the English translations " The Man in the 
Iron Mask," though why it is difficult to see, since 
it is but the second volume of " The Vicomte de 
Bragelonne." 

This historical mystery has provided penmen 
of all calibres with an everlasting motive for argu- 
mentative conjecture, but Dumas without hesitancy 
comes out strongly for " a prince of the royal 
blood," probably the brother of Louis XIV. 

It has been said that Voltaire invented " the Man 
in the Iron Mask." 

There was nothing singular — for the France of 
that day — in the man himself, his offence, or his 
punishment; but the mask and the mystery — 
chiefly of Voltaire's creation — fascinated the public, 
as the veil of Mokanna fascinated his worshippers. 



Ube Bastille 289 

Here are some of the Voltairean myths about this 
mysterious prisoner : One day he wrote something 
with his knife on a silver plate and threw it down 
to a fisherman, who took it to the governor of the 
prison. " Have you read it ? " asked the governor, 
sternly. " I cannot read," replied the fisherman. 
" That has saved your life," rejoined the governor. 
Another day a young lad found beneath the prison 
tower a shirt written closely all over. He took it 
to the governor, who asked, anxiously. " Have you 
read it?" The boy again and again assured him 
that he had not. Nevertheless, two days later the 
boy was found dead in his bed. When the Iron 
Mask went toi mass he was forbidden to speak or 
unmask himself on pain of being then and there 
shot down by the invalids, who stood by with 
loaded carbines to carry out the threat. Here are 
some of the personages the Iron Mask was supposed 
to be: An illegitimate son of Anne of Austria; a 
twin brother of Louis XIV., put out of the way by 
Cardinal Richelieu to avoid the risk of a disputed 
succession; the Count of Vermandois, an illegiti- 
mate son of Louis XIV. ; P'ouquet, Louis' minister ; 
the Duke of Beaufort, a hero of the Fronde; the 
Duke of Monmouth, the English pretender; Ave- 
dick, the Armenian patriarch; and of late it has 



290 2)umas' Paris 

almost come to be accepted that he was Mattioli, a 
Piedmontese poiHtical prisoner, who died in 1703. 

Dumas, at any rate, took the plausible and ac- 
ceptable popular solution ; and it certainly furnished 
him with a highly fascinating theme for a romance, 
which, however, never apparently achieved any 
great popularity. 

" The clock was striking seven as Aramis passed 
before the Rue du Petit Muse and stopped at the 
Rue Tourelles, at the gateway of the Bastille. . . . 

" Of the governor of the prison Aramis — now 
Bishop of Vannes — asked, * How many prisoners 
have you ? Sixty ? ' . . . 

" * For a prince of the blood I have fifty francs 
a day, . . . thirty-six for a marechal de France, 
lieutenant-generals and brigadiers pay twenty-six 
francs, and councillors of parliament fifteen, but 
for an ordinary judge, or an ecclesiastic, I receive 
only ten francs.' " 

Here Dumas' knowledge and love of good eating 
again crops out. Continuing the dialogue between 
the bishop and the governor, he says: 

" ' A tolerably sized fowl costs a franc and a 
half, and a good-sized fish four or five francs. 
Three meals a day are served, and, as the prisoners 
have nothing to do, they are always eating. A 



Ube Bastille 291 

prisoner from whom I get ten francs costs me 
seven francs and a half/ 

" * Have you no prisoners, then, at less than ten 
francs ? ' queried Aramis. 

" * Oh, yes,' said the governor, ' citizens and 
lawyers.' 

"'But do they not eat, too'? . . . Do not the 
prisoners leave some scraps ? ' continued Aramis. 

" * Yes, and I delight the heart of some poor little 
tradesman or clerk by sending him a wing of a 
red partridge, a slice of venison, or a slice of a 
truffled pasty, dishes which he never tasted except 
in his dreams (these are the leavings of the twenty- 
four- franc prisoners) ; and he eats and drinks, 
and at dessert cries, " Long live the king ! " and 
blesses the Bastille. With a couple of bottles of 
champagne, which cost me five sous, I make him 
tipsy every Sunday. That class of people call down 
blessings upon me, and are sorry to leave the prison. 
Do you know that I have remarked, and it does 
me infinite honour, that certain prisoners, who have 
been set at liberty, have almost immediately after- 
ward got imprisoned again? Why should this be 
the case, unless it be to enjoy the pleasures of my 
kitchen ? It is really the fact.' Aramis smiled with 
an expression of incredulity." 

A visit to the prisoners themselves follows, but 



292 Dumas' Paris 

the reader of these lines is referred to *' Le Vicomte 
de Bragelonne " for further details. 

The following few lines must suffice here: 

" The number of bolts, gratings, and locks for 
the courtyard would have sufficed for the safety 
of an entire city. Aramis was neither an imagi- 
native nor a sensitive man; he had been somewhat 
of a poet in his youth, but his heart was hard and 
indifferent, as the heart of every man of fifty-five 
years of age is, who has been frequently and passion- 
ately attached to women in his lifetime, or rather 
who has been passionately loved by them. But when 
he placed his foot upon the worn stone steps, along 
which so many unhappy wretches had passed, when 
he felt himself impregnated, as it were, with the 
atmosphere of those gloomy dungeons, moistened 
with tears, there could be but little doubt he was 
overcome by his feelings, for his head was bowed 
and his eyes became dim, as he followed Baise- 
meaux, the governor, without uttering a syllable." 

Dumas gives a further description, of similar 
import, in " The Regent's Daughter : " 

" And now, with the reader's permission, we 
will enter the Bastille — that formidable building 
at which even the passing traveller trembled, and 
which, tO' the whole neighbourhood, was an annoy- 
ance and cause of alarm; for often at night the 



Ube JSastille 293 

cries of the unfortunate prisoners who were under 
torture might be heard piercing the thick walls, so 
much so, that the Duchesse de Lesdequieres once 
wrote to the governor, that, if he did not prevent 
his patients from making such a noise, she should 
complain to the king. 

" At this time, however, under the reign of 
Philippe d'Orleans, there were no cries to be heard ; 
the society was select, and too well bred to disturb 
the repose of a lady. 

" In a room in the Du Coin tower, on the first 
floor, was a prisoner alone. . . . He had, however, 
been but one day in the Bastille, and yet already 
he paced his vast chamber, examining the iron- 
barred doors, looking through the grated windows, 
listening, sighing, waiting. . . . 

" A noise of bolts and creaking hinges drew the 
prisoner from this sad occupation, and he saw the 
man enter before whom he had been taken the 
day before. This man, about thirty years of age, 
with an agreeable appearance and polite bearing, 
was the governor, M. De Launay, father of that 
De Launay who died at his post in '89. . . . 

" ' M. de Chanlay,' said the governor, bowing, ' I 
come to know if you have passed a good night, and 
are satisfied with the fare of the house and the 



294 2)umas' ff>ari0 

conduct of the employes ' — thus M. De Launay, in 
his poHteness, called the turnkeys and jailors. 

" * Yes, monsieur ; and these attentions paid to 
a prisoner have surprised me, I own.' 

" * The bed is hard and old, but yet it is one of 
the best; luxury being forbidden by our rules. 
Your room, monsieur, is the best in the Bastille; 
it has been occupied by the Due d'Angouleme, by 
the Marquis de Bassompierre, and by the Marshals 
'de Ljuxembourg and Biron; it is here that I lodge 
the princes when his Majesty does me the honour 
tO' send them to me.' 

" * It is an excellent lodging,' said Gaston, smil- 
ing, * though ill furnished ; can I have some books, 
some paper, and pens ? ' 

" ' Books, monsieur, are strictly forbidden ; but 
if you very much wish to read, as many things are 
allowed to a prisoner who is ennuye, come and 
see me, then you can put in your pocket one of those 
volumes which my wife or I leave about ; you will 
hide it from all eyes ; on a second visit you will take 
the second volume, and to this abstraction we will 
close our eyes.' 

" * And paper, pens, ink ? ' said Gaston. * I wish 
most particularly to write.' 

" * No one writes here, monsieur; or, at least, 
only to the king, the regent, the minister, or to me; 



Ube Bastille 295 

but they draw, and I can let you have drawing- 
paper and pencils.' " 

All of the above is the authenticated fact of his- 
tory, as written records prove, but it is much better 
told by Dumas, the novelist, than by most his- 
torians. 

Still other evidence of the good things set before 
the guests at the " Hotel de la Bastille " is shown 
by the following. If Dumas drew the facts from 
historical records, all well and good; if they were 
menus composed by himself, — though unconven- 
tional ones, as all hon vivants will know, — why, 
still all is well. 

" * A fifteen-franc boarder does not suffer, my 
lord,' said De Baisemeaux. — * He suffers imprison- 
ment, at all events.' — * No doubt, but his suffering 
is sweetened for him. You must admit this young 
fellow was not bom to eat such things as he now 
has before him. A pasty; crayfish from the river 
Marne — almost as big as lobsters ; and a bottle of 
Volnay.' " 

The potency of the Bastille as a preventative, or, 
rather, a fit punishment for crime, has been nowhere 
more effectually set forth than by the letter which 
Cagliostro wrote from London (in the " Queen's 
Necklace"). 

In this letter, after attacking king, queen, car- 



296 H)uma6' parts 

dinal, arid even M. de Breteuil, Cagliostro said: 
" Yes, I repeat, now free after my imprisonment, 
there is no crime that would not be expiated by 
six months in the Bastille. They ask me if I shall 
ever return tO' France. Yes, I reply, when the 
Bastille becomes a public promenade. You have 
all that is necessary to happiness, you Frenchmen; 
a fertile soil and genial climate, good hearts, gay 
tempers, genius, and grace. You only want, my 
friends, one little thing — to feel sure of sleeping 
quietly in your beds when you are innocent." 

To-day " The Bastille," as it is commonly known 
and referred to, meaning the Place de la Bastille, 
has become a public promenade, arid its bygone 
terrors are but a memory. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE ROYAL PARKS AND PALACES 

ipylNCE the romances of Dumas deal so 
I \ largely with Paris, it is but natural that 
much of their action should take place 
at the near-by country residences of the royalty 
and nobility who form the casts of these great 
series of historical tales. 

To-day Fontainebleau, St. Germain, Versailles, 
and even Chantilly, Compiegne, and Rambouillet 
are but mere attractions for the tourist of the butter- 
fly order. The real Parisian never visits them or 
their precincts, save as he rushes through their tree- 
lined avenues in an automobile ; and thus they have 
all come to be regarded merely as monuments of 
splendid scenes, which have been played, and on 
which the curtain has been rung down. 

This is by no means the real case, and one has 
only to read Dumas, and do the round of the parks 
and chateaux which environ Paris, to revivify many 
of the scenes of which he writes. 

297 



298 2>ttmas' ©arts 

Versailles is the most popular, Fontainebleau the 
most grand, St. Germain the most theatrical, Ram- 
bouillet the most rural-like, and Compiegne and 
Chantilly the most delicate and dainty. 

Still nearer to Paris, and more under the in- 
fluence of town life, were the chateaux of Madrid 
in the Bois de Boulogne, and of Vincennes, at the 
other extremity of the city. 

All these are quite in a class by themselves; 
though, of course, in a way, they performed the 
same functions when royalty was in residence, as the 
urban palaces. 

Dumas' final appreciation of the charms of Fon- 
tainebleau does not come till one reaches the last 
pages of "Le Vicomte de Bragelonne." True, it 
was not until the period of which this romance 
deals with Fontainebleau, its chateau, its foret, and 
its fetes, actually came to that prominence which 
to this day has never left them. 

When the king required to give his fete at Fon- 
tainebleau, as we learn from Dumas, and history, 
too, he required of Fouquet four millions of francs, 
" in order to keep an open house for fifteen days," 
said he. How he got them, and with what result, 
is best read in the pages of the romance. 

" Life at the Palais Royal having become some- 
what tame, the king had directed that Fontaine- 



Ube IRoi^al iparfes an& palaces 299 

bleau should be prepared for the reception of the 
court/' Here, then, took place the fetes which 
were predicted, and Dumas, with his usual direct- 
ness and brilliance, has given us a marvellous de- 
scription of the gaiety of court life, surrounded by 
the noble forest, over which artists and sentimental- 
ists have ever rhapsodized. 

Continuing, from the pages of Dumas which im- 
mediately follow, one reads: 

" For four days, every kind of enchantment 
brought together in the magnificent gardens of 
Fontainebleau, had converted this spot into a place 
of the most perfect enjoyment. M. Colbert seemed 
gifted with ubiquity. In the morning, there were 
the accounts of the previous night's expenses to 
settle; during the day, programmes, essays, en- 
listments, payments. M. Colbert had amassed four 
millions of francs, and dispersed them with a pru- 
dent economy. He was horrified at the expenses 
which mythology involved; every wood-nymph, 
every dryad, did not cost less than a hundred francs 
a day. The dresses alone amounted to three hun- 
dred francs. The expense of powder and sulphur 
for fireworks amounted, every night, to a hundred 
thousand francs. In addition to these, the illumi- 
nations on the borders of the sheet of water cost 
thirty thousand francs every evening. The fetes 



300 H)ttma0' Paris 

had been magnificent; and Colbert could not re- 
strain his delight. From time to time he noticed 
Madame and the king setting forth on hunting 
expeditions, or preparing for the reception of dif- 
ferent fantastic personages, solemn ceremonials, 
which had been extemporized a fortnight before, 
and in which Madame's sparkling wit and the king's 
magnificence were equally displayed." 

The " Inn of the Beautiful Peacock," celebrated 
by Dumas in " Le Vicomte de Bragelonne," is not 
directly traceable to-day in the many neighbouring 
hostelries of Fontainebleau. Just what Dumas had 
in mind is vague, though his description might 
apply to any house for travellers, wherever it may 
have been situated in this beautiful wild wood. 

It was to this inn of the " Beau Paon " that 
Aramis repaired, after he had left Fouquet and had 
donned the costume of the cavalier once more. 
" Where," said Dumas, " he (Aramis) had, by let- 
ters previously sent, directed an apartment or a 
room to be retained for him. He chose the room, 
which was on the first floor, whereas the apart- 
ment was on the second." 

The description of the establishment given by 
Dumas is as follows: 

" In the first place, let us supply our readers 
with a few details about the inn called the Beau 



XEbe IRopal parfts anb palaces 301 

Paon. It owed its name to its sign, which repre- 
sented a peacock spreading out its tail. But, in 
imitation of some painters who had bestowed the 
face of a handsome young man upon the serpent 
which tempted Eve, the painter of this sign had 
conferred upon the peacock the features of a woman. 
This inn, a Hving epigram against that half of the 
human race which renders existence delightful, was 
situated at Fontainebleau, in the first turning on the 
left-hand side, which divides on the road from 
Paris, that large artery which constitutes in itself 
along the entire town of Fontainebleau. The side 
street in question was then known as the Rue de 
Lyon, doubtless because geographically it advanced 
in the direction of the second capital of the king- 
dom." 

Lyons itself is treated by Dumas at some length 
in " Chicot the Jester," particularly with reference 
to Chicot's interception of the Pope's messenger, 
who brought the documents which were to estab- 
lish the Due de Guise's priority as to rights to the 
throne of France. 

" The inn of the Beau Paon had its principal 
front toward the main street; but upon the Rue 
de Lyon there were two ranges of buildings, divided 
by courtyards, which comprised sets of apartments 
for the reception of all classes of travellers, whether 



302 2)ttmas' Paris 

on foot or on horseback, or even with their own 
carriages, and in which could be supphed, not only 
board and lodging, but also accommodation for 
exercise or opportunities of solitude for even the 
wealthiest courtiers, whenever, after having re- 
ceived some check at the court, they wished to shut 
themselves up with their own society, either to 
devour an affront or to brood over their revenge. 
From the windows of this part of the building 
the travellers could perceive, in the first place, the 
street with the grass growing between the stones, 
which were being gradually loosened by it; next, 
the beautiful hedges of elder and thorn, which em- 
braced, as though within two green and flowering 
arms, the houses of which we have spoken; and 
then, in the spaces between those houses, forming 
the groundwork of the picture, and appearing like 
an almost impassable barrier, a line of thick trees, 
the advanced sentinels of the vast forest, which 
extends itself in front of Fontainebleau." 

On the road to Versailles, where the Seine is 
crossed by the not beautiful Pont de Sevres, is the 
little inn of the Bridge of Sevres, in which the 
story of " La Comtesse de Chamy " opens, and, 
indeed, in which all its early action takes place. 
The inn, or even its direct descendant, is not dis- 
cernible to-day. The Pont de Sevres is there, linking 



Uhc IRo^al parks anb ipalaces 303 

one of those thumblike peninsulas made by the 
winding's of the Seine with the Bois de Meudon, 
and the traffic inward and outward from^ Paris is as 
great and varied as it always was, probably greater, 
but there is no inn to suggest that which Dumas 
had in mind. The rural aspect is somewhat changed, 
the towering stacks of the china- factory chimneys, 
the still more towering — though distant — Tour 
Eiffel, which fortunately is soon to be razed, and 
the iron rails of the "Ceinture" and the "Quest," all 
tend to estrange one's sentiments from true romance. 

Farther on to the westward lies Versailles, with 
its theatrical, though splendid, palais and pare, the 
Trianons and Les Grandes Eaux, beloved by the 
tourist and the Parisian alike. 

Still farther to the northward by the same road 
is the pretty town of St. Germain-en-Laye, with the 
remains of its Chateau Neuf, once the most splendid 
and gorgeous country residence of Henri II. and 
Henri IV., continuing, also, in the favour of the 
court until the birth here oi Louis XIV. James 11. 
of England made his residence here after his exile. 

Dumas' references to St. Germain are largely 
found in '* Vingt Ans Apres." 

It was near St. Germain, too, that Dumas set 
about erecting his famous " Chatelet du Monte 
Cristo." In fact, he did erect it, on his usual ex- 



304 Bumas' Paris 

travagant ideas, but his tenure there was short-Hved, 
and, altogether, it was not a creditable undertaking, 
as after-events proved. 

The gaiety of the life at St. Germain departed 
suddenly, but it is said of Dumas' life there, that 
he surrounded himself with a coterie which bespoke 
somewhat its former abandon and luxuriance. It 
was somewhat of a Bohemian life that he lived 
there, no doubt, but it was not of the sordid or 
humble kind; it was most gorgeous and extrava- 
gant. 

Of all the royal parks and palaces in the neigh- 
bourhood of Paris, Versailles has the most popu- 
larly sentimental interest. A whim of Louis XIV., 
it was called by Voltaire " an abyss of expense," 
and so it truly was, as all familiar with its history 
know. 

In the later volumes of Dumas' " La Comtesse de 
Charnay," "The Queen's Necklace," and "The 
Taking of the Bastille," frequent mention is made 
but he does not write of it with the same affec- 
tion that he does of Fontainebleau or St. Germain. 
The details which Dumas presents in " The Taking 
of the Bastille " shows this full well. 

" At half-past ten, in ordinary times, every one in 
Versailles would have been in bed and wrapped in 
the profoundest slumber ; but that night no eye was 



TLhc IRoi^al parfts ant) palaces 305 

closed at Versailles. They had felt the counter- 
shock oif the terrible concussion with which Paris 
was still trembling. 

" The French Guards, the body-guards, the Swiss 
drawn up in platoons, and grouped near the open- 
ings of all the principal streets, were conversing 
among themselves, or with those of the citizens 
whose fidelity to> the monarchy inspired them with 
confidence. 

" For Versailles has, at all times, been a royalist 
city. Religious respect for the monarchy, if not for 
the monarch, is engrafted in the hearts of its inhab- 
itants, as if it were a quality of its soil. Having 
always lived near kings, and fostered by their 
bounty, beneath the shade of their wonders — hav- 
ing always inhaled the intoxicating perfume of the 
iieurs-de-lis, and seen the brilliant gold of their 
garments, and the smiles upon their august lips, the 
inhabitants of Versailles, for whom kings have built 
a city of marble and porphyry, feel almost kings 
themselves ; and even at the present day, even now, 
when moss is growing around the marble, and grass 
is springing up between the slabs of the pavement, 
now that gold has almost disappeared from the 
wainscoting, and that the shady walks of the parks 
are more solitary than a graveyard, Versailles must 
either belie its origin, or must consider itself as a 



3o6 Bumas' Paris 

fragment of the fallen monarchy, and no' longer 
feeling the pride of power and wealth, must at least 
retain the poetical associations of regret, and the 
sovereign charms of melancholy. Thus, as we have 
already stated, all Versailles, in the night between 
the 14th and 15th July, 1789, was confusedly agi- 
tated, anxious to ascertain how the King of France 
would reply to- the insult offered to the throne, and 
the deadly wound inflicted on his power." 

Versailles was one of the latest of the royal 
palaces, and since its birth, or at least since the days 
of " personally " and " non-conducted " tourists, has 
claimed, perhaps, even more than its share of pop- 
ular favour. Certainly it is a rare attraction, and its 
past has been in turn sad, gay, brilliant, and gloomy. 
Event after event, some significant, others unim- 
portant, but none mean or sordid, have taken place 
within its walls or amid its environment. Dumas 
evidently did not rank its beauties very high, — 
and perhaps rightly, — for while it is a gorgeous 
fabric and its surroundings and appointments are 
likewise gorgeous, it palls unmistakably by reason 
of its sheer artificiality. Dumas said much the 
same thing when he described it as " that world of 
automata, of statues, and boxwood forests, called 
Versailles." 

Much of the action of '' The Queen's Necklace " 



iLbc IRoigal iPatfes anb IPalaces 307 

takes place at Versailles, and every line relating 
thereto is redolent of a first-hand observation on 
the part of the author. There is no scamping detail 
here, nor is there any excess of it. 

With the fourth chapter of the romance, when 
Madame de la Motte drove to Versailles in her 
cabriolet, " built lightly, open, and fashionable, with 
high wheels, and a place behind for a servant to 
stand," begins the record of the various incidents 
of the story, which either took place at Versailles 
or centred around it. 

" ' Where are we to go? ' said Weber, who had 
charge of madame's cabriolet. — ' To Versailles.' 
— * By the boulevards ? ' — * No.' ... * We are at 
Versailles,' said the driver. * Where must I stop, 
ladies? ' — ' At the Place d'Armes.' " " At this mo- 
ment," says Dumas, in the romance, " our heroines 
heard the clock strike from the church of St. Louis." 

Dumas' descriptions of Versailles are singularly 
complete, and without verboseness. At least, he 
suggests more of the splendours of that gay resi- 
dence of the court than he actually defines, and 
puts into the mouths of his characters much that 
others would waste on mere descriptive matter. 

In the chapter headed Vincennes, in " Marguerite 
de Valois," Dumas gives a most graphic descrip- 
tion of its one-time chateau-prison : 



3o8 Dumas' Ipatts 

"According to the order given by Charles IX., 
Henri was the same evening conducted to Vincennes, 
that famous castle of which only a fragment now 
remains, but colossal enough toi give an idea of its 
past grandeur. 

" At the postern of the prison they stopped. M. 
de Nancey alighted from his horse, opened the gate 
closed with a padlock, and respectfully invited the 
king to follow him. Henri obeyed without a word 
of reply. Every abode seemed to him more safe 
than the Louvre, and ten doors, closing on him at 
the same time, were between him and Catherine de 
Medici. 

" The royal prisoner crossed the drawbridge be- 
tween two soldiers, passed the three doors on the 
ground floor and the three doors at the foot of 
the staircase, and then, still preceded by M. de 
Nancey, went up one flight of stairs. Arrived there, 
Captain de Nancey requested the king to follow 
him through a kind of corridor, at the extremity 
of which was a very large and gloomy chamber. 

" Henri looked around him with considerable dis- 
quietude. 

" * Where are we? ' he inquired. 

" ' In the chamber of torture, monseigneur.' 

" ' Ah, ah ! * replied the king, looking at it atten- 
tively. 



Ubc IRopal iParfts anb palaces 309 

*' There was something of everything" in this 
apartment: pitchers and trestles for the torture by- 
water; wedges and mallets for the question of the 
boot; moreover, there were stone benches for tlie 
unhappy wretches who awaited the question, nearly 
all around the chamber ; and above these seats, and 
to the seats themselves, and at the foot of these seats, 
were iron rings, mortised into the walls with no 
symmetry but that of the torturing art. 

" ' Ah, ah ! ' said Henri, ' is this the way to my 
apartment ? ' 

" ^ Yes, monseigneur, and here it is,' said a figure 
in the dark, who approached and then became dis- 
tinguishable. 

" Henri thought he recognized the voice, and, 
advancing toward the individual, said, * Ah, is it 
you, Beaulieu? And what the devil do you do 
here?' 

" ' Sire, I have been nominated governor of the 
fortress of Vincennes.' 

" ' Well, my dear sir, your debut does you honour ; 
a king for a prisoner is no bad commencement.' 

*' * Pardon me, Sire, but before I received you I 
had already received two gentlemen.' 

" ' Who may they be ? Ah ! your pardon ; per- 
haps I commit an indiscretion.' 



316 i)ttmas' lpad0 

" * Monseigneur, I have not been bound to secrecy. 
They are M. de la Mole and M. de Coconnas/ 

" * Poor gentlemen ! And where are they ? ' 

" ' High up, in the fourth floor.' 

" Henri gave a sigh. It was there he wished 
to be. 

" ' Now, then, M. de Beaulieu,' said Henri, * have 
the kindness to show me my chamber. I am de- 
sirous of reaching it, as I am very much fatigued 
with my day's toil.' 

" * Here, monseigneur,' said Beaulieu, showing 
Henri an open door. 

" ' No. 2 ! ' said Henri. ' And why not No. i ? ' 

" * Because it is reserved, monseigneur.' 

" * Ah ! that is another thing,' said Henri, and he 
became even more pensive. 

" He wondered who was to occupy No. i. 

" The governor, with a thousand apologies, in- 
stalled Henri in his apartment, made many excuses 
for his deficiencies, and, placing two soldiers at the 
door, retired. 

" * Now,' said the governor, addressing the turn- 
key, ' let us visit the others.' " 

The present aspect of St. Germain-en-Laye is 
hardly what it was In the days of which Dumas 
wrote in " Marguerite de Valois " or in " Vingt 



XTbe IRo^al parks anb palaces 31 ^ 

Ans Apres." Le Bois or Le Foret looks to-day 
in parts, at least — much as it did in the days when 
royalty hunted its domain, and the glorious facade 
chateau has endured well. 

Beyond this, the romance and history have well- 
nigh evaporated into air. The whole neighbour- 
hood is quite given over to a holiday, pleasure- 
making crowd, which, though it is typically French, 
and therefore interesting, is little in keeping with 
the splendid scenes of its past. 

To-day peasants from Brittany, heavily booted 
cavalry and artillery, ouvriers, children and nurse- 
maids, and touristes of all nationalities throng the 
allies of the forest and the corridors of the chateau, 
where once royalty and its retainers held forth. 

Vesinet, on the road from Paris to St. Germain, 
— just before one reaches Pecq, and the twentieth- 
century chemifi'-de-fer begins to climb that long, 
inclined viaduct, which crosses the Seine and rises 
ultimately to the platform on which sits the Vieux 
Chateau, — was a favourite hawking-ground of 
Charles IX. Indeed, it was here that that monarch 
was warned of "a fresh calumny against his poor 
Harry" (Henri de Navarre), as one reads in the 
pages of " Marguerite de Valois." 

A further description follows of Charles' cele- 
brated falcon. Bee de Fer, which is assuredly one 



312 2)ttmas' Paris 

of the most extraordinary descriptions of a hunting- 
scene extant in the written page of romance. 

Much hunting took place in all of Dumas' ro- 
mances, and the near-by forests of France, i. e., near 
either to Paris or to the royal residences elsewhere, 
were the scenes of many gay meetings, where the 
stag, the boar, the cerf, and all manner of footed 
beasts and winged fowl were hunted in pure sport; 
though, after all, it is not recorded that it was as 
brutal a variety as the battues of the present day. 

St. Germain, its chateau and its foretj enters once 
and again, and again, into both the Valois series 
and the Mousquetaire romances. Of all the 
royal, suburban palaces, none have been more ad- 
mired and loved for its splendid appointments and 
the splendid functions which have taken place there, 
than St. Germain. 

It had early come into favour as the residence 
of the French kings, the existing chapel being the 
foundation of St. Louis, while the Chateau Neuf 
was built mainly by Henri 11. To-day but a solitary 
pavilion — that known as Henri IV. — remains, 
while the Vieux Chateau, as it was formerly known, 
is to-day acknowledged as the Chateau. 

The most significant incident laid here by Dumas, 
is that of the flight of Anne of Austria, Louis XIV., 
and the court, from Paris to the Chateau of St. 



Ube tRoi^al parKs anb palaces 313 

Germain. This plan was amplified, according to 
Dumas, and furthered by D'Artagnan and Athos; 
and since it is an acknowledged fact of history, this 
points once again to the worth of the historical 
romance from an exceedingly edifying view-point. 
At the time of the flight Louis was but a mere boy, 
and it may be recalled here that he was born at 
St. Germain in 1638. 

The architectural glories of St. Germain are 
hardly so great as to warrant comparison with 
Versailles, to which Louis subsequently removed 
his court; indeed, the Chateau Neuf, with the ex- 
ception of the pavilion before mentioned, is not 
even a dignified ruin, being but scattered piles of 
debris, which, since 1776, when the structure was 
razed, have been left lying about in most desultory 
fashion. 

The Vieux Chateau was made use of by the great 
Napoleon as a sort of a barracks, and again as a 
prison, but has since been restored according to the 
original plans of the architect Ducercen, who, under 
Frangois L, was to have carried it to completion. 

Once St. Germain was the home of royalty and 
all the gaiety of the court life of the Louis, and 
once again it was on the eve of becoming the fash- 
ionable Paris suburb, but now it is the resort of 
" trippers," and its chateau, or what was left of it 



314 2)umas' Paris 

after the vandalism of the eighteenth century, is 
a sad ruin, though the view from its heights is as 
lovely as ever — that portion which remains being 
but an aggravation, when one recalls the glories 
that once were. Save the Vieux Chateau, all that 
is left is the lovely view. Paris-wards one sees 
a panorama — a veritable vol-d' oiseaux — of the 
slender, silvery loops of the Seine as it bends around 
Port Marly, Argenteuil, Courbevoie, St. Denis, and 
St. Cloud ; while in the dimmest of the dim distance 
the Eiffel Tower looms all its ugliness up into the 
sky, and the domed heights of Montmartre and the 
Buttes Chaumont look really beautiful — which they 
do not on closer view. 

The height of St. Germain itself — the ville' and 
the chateau — is not so very great, and it certainly 
is not giddy, which most of its frequenters, for one 
reason or another, are ; but its miserable pave is the 
curse of all automobilists, and the sinuous road 
which ascends from the Pont du Pecq is now 
" rushed," up and down, by motor-cars, to the joy 
of the native, when one gets stalled, as they fre- 
quently do, and to the danger to life and limb of 
all other road-users and passers-by. 

In all of the Valois cycle, " la chasse " plays an 
important part in the pleasure of the court and the 



XTbe IRoi^al parfts auD palaces 3^5 

noblesse. The forests in the neighbourhood of Paris 
are numerous and noted. 

At Villers-Cotterets, Dumas' birthplace, is the 
Foret de Villers-Cotterets, a dependence of the 
Valois establishment at Crepy. 

Bondy, Fontainebleau, St. Germain, Vincennes, 
and Rambouillet are all mentioned, and are too 
familiar to even casual travellers tO' warrant the 
inclusion of detailed description here. 

Next to Fontainebleau, whose present-day fame 
rests with the artists of the Barbizon school, who 
have perpetuated its rocks and trees, and St. Ger- 
main, which is mostly revered for the past splendour 
of its chateau, Rambouillet most frequently comes 
to mind. 

Even Republican France has its national hunt 
yearly, at Rambouillet, and visiting monarchs are 
invariably expected to partake' in the shooting. 

Rambouillet, the hameau and the foret^ was an- 
ciently under the feudal authority of the Comtes 
de Montford, afterward (1300) under Regnault 
d'Augennes, Capitaine du Louvre under Charles VI., 
and still later under Jacques d'Augennes, Capitaine 
du Chateau de Rambouillet in 1547. Louis XVL 
purchased the chateau for one of his residences, and 
Napoleon III., as well as his more illustrious name- 
sake, was specially fond of hunting in its forests. 



3i6 Dumas' parts 

Since 1870 the chateau and the forest have been 
under the domination of the state. 

There is a chapter in Dumas' " The Regent's 
Daughter," entitled " A Room in the Hotel at Ram- 
bouillet," which gives some little detail respecting 
the town and the forest. 

There is no hotel in Rambouillet to-day known as 
the " Royal Tiger," though there is a " Golden 
Lion." 

" Ten minutes later the carriage stopped at the 
Tigre-Royal. A woman, who was waiting, came 
out hastily, and respectfully assisted the ladies to 
alight, and then guided them through the passages 
of the hotel, preceded by a valet carrying lights. 

" A door opened, Madame Desroches drew back 
to allow Helene and Sister Therese to pass and 
they soon found themselves on a soft and easy sofa, 
in front of a bright fire. 

" The room was large and well furnished, but 
the taste was severe, for the style called rococo was 
not yet introduced. Tliere were four doors; the 
first was that by which they had entered — the 
second led to the dining-room, which was already 
lighted and warmed — the third led into a richly 
appointed bedroom — the fourth did not open. . . . 

" While the things which we have related were 
passing in the parlour of the Hotel Tigre-Royal, in 



Ube IRopal parfts anb palaces 317 

another apartment of the same hotel, seated near a 
large fire, was a man shaking the snow from his 
boots, and untying the strings of a large portfolio. 
This man was dressed in the hunting livery of the 
house of Orleans; the coat red and silver, large 
boots, and a three-cornered hat, trimmed with silver. 
He had a quick eye, a long, pointed nose, a round 
and open forehead, which was contradicted by thin 
and compressed lips." 

Compiegne, like Crepy-en-Valois, Dammartin, 
Villers-Cotterets, and other of the towns and vil- 
lages of the district, which in the fourteenth century 
belonged to the younger branch of the royal house, 
enter largely into the romances of Dumas, as was 
but natural, seeing that this region was the land 
of his birth. 

The most elaborate and purely descriptive parts 
are found in " The Wolf Leader," wherein are pre- 
sented so many pictures of the forest life of the 
region, and in " The Taking of the Bastille," in 
that part which describes the journey of Ange 
Pitou tO' Paris. 

Crepy, Compiegne, Senlis, Pierrefonds, are still 
more celebrated in Dumas' writings for glorious and 
splendid achievements — as they are with respect 
to the actual fact of history, and the imposing 



3i8 2)umas' parts 

architectural monuments which still remain to illus- 
trate the conditions under which life endured in 
mediaeval times. 

At Crepy, now a sleepy old-world village, is still 
seen the establishment of the Valois of which Dumas 
wrote ; and another grande maison of the Valois was 
at Villers-Cotterets — a still more somnolent re- 
minder of the past. At Compiegne, only, with its 
magnificent Hotel de Ville, does one find the ac- 
tivities of a modern-day life and energy. 

Here in strange juxtaposition with a remarkably 
interesting and picturesque church, and the dainty 
Renaissance Hotel de Ville, with its jacquema/rt, 
its belfry, its pointed gable, and its ornate facade, 
is found a blend of past and present, which combines 
to produce one of those transformations or stage- 
settings which throughout France are so often met 
with and admired. 

No more charming petite ville exists in all France 
than Compiegne, one of the most favoured of all 
the country residences of the Kings of France. 

The chateau seen to-day was an erection of 
Louis XV. 

Le Foret de Compiegne is as beautiful and un- 
spoiled as any, and is, moreover, not overrun with 
tourists and trippers, as is Fontainebleau. 



Ubc IRo^al parks anb palaces 319 

Its area approximates 60,000 acres, and its cir- 
cumference sixty miles. 

In short, the whole domain forms a charming and 
delightful place of retreat, which must have been 
duly appreciated during the troublous times O'f 
Louis' reign. 

It was here, in the Foret de Compiegne, that the 
great hunting was held, which is treated in " Chicot 
the Jester." 

The Bois de Vincennes was a famous duelling- 
ground — and is to-day, sub rosa. It was here 
that Louis de Franchi, in the " Corsican Brothers," 
who forewarned of his fate, died in the duel with 
Rene de Chateaurien, just as he had predicted; at 
exactly '' neiif heures dix." 

This park is by no means the rival of the Bois 
de Boulogne in the affections of the Parisian public, 
but it is a wide expanse of tree-covered park land, 
and possesses all the characteristics of the other 
suburban forets which surround Paris on all sides. 

It has, moreover, a chateau, a former retreat or 
country residence of the Kings of France, though 
to-day it has been made over to the ministry of 
war, whereas the Chateau de Madrid, the former 
possession of the Bois de Boulogne, has disappeared. 
The Chateau de Vincennes is not one of the sights 
of Paris. For a fact, it is quite inaccessible, being 



320 Pumas' ©arts 

surrounded by the ramparts of the Fort de Vin- 
cennes, and therefore forbidden to the inquisitive. 

It was here in the Chateau de Vincennes that 
Charles IX. died a Hngering death, " by the poison 
prepared for another," as Dumas has it in " Mar- 
guerite de Valois." 

Among the many illustrious prisoners of the 
Chateau de Vincennes have been the King of Na- 
varre (1574), Conde (1650), Cardinal de Retz 
(1652), Fouquet (1661), Mirabeau (1777), the 
Due d'Enghien (1804), and many others, most of 
whom have lived and breathed in Dumas' pages, in 
the same parts which they played in real life. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



THE FRENCH PROVINCES 



T~X UMAS' acquaintance with the French prov- 
I B inces was very comprehensive, though it 
is of the region northeast of Paris that 
he was most fond; of the beloved forest region 
around Crepy and Villers-Cotterets ; the road to 
Calais, and Picardie and Flanders. Dumas was ever 
fond of, and familiar with, the road from Paris to 
Calais. The National Route ran through Crepy, and 
the byroad through his native Villers-Cotterets. In 
the " Vicomte de Bragelonne," he calls the region 
"The Land of God," a sentiment which mostly 
has not been endorsed by other writers; still, it 
is a beautiful country, and with its thickly wooded 
plantations, its industrious though conglomerate 
population, it is to-day — save for the Cantal and 
the Auvergne — that part of France of which Eng- 
lish-speaking folk know the least. And this, too, 

on the direct road between London and Paris ! 

321 



322 2)umas' iparts 

Dumas, in the above-mentioned book, describes 
the journey through this region which was made 
by Buckingham and De Wardes. 

" Arriving at Calais, at the end of the sixth day, 
they chartered a boat for the purpose of joining 
the yacht that was to convey them to England, and 
which was then tacking about in full view." 

The old port of Calais must have been made use 
of by the personages of whom Dumas wrote, who 
trafficked forth between England and France. 

Calais has ever been the most important terminus 
of cross-channel traffic, and there be those who 
know, who say that the boat service is not improved 
in comfort in all these ages, and certainly Calais, 
which most English travellers know only by fleeting 
glimpses, might with profit be visited more fre- 
quently, if only to follow in the wake of Sterne's 
sentimental footsteps. 

The old port, of course, exists no more; new 
dykes, breakwaters, and the gare maritime have 
taken the place of the ancient landing-places, w^here 
royalties and others used to embark in frail sailing- 
vessels for the English ports across the channel. 

The old belfry still exists, and forms a beacon 
by day, at least, much as it did of yore. By night 
the new electric-light flashes its beams twenty odd 
miles across the channel on Dover Cliff, in a way 



XTbe ffrencb provinces 323 

which would have astonished our forefathers in the 
days gone by. 

It was at Calais, too, that was enacted the final 
scene in the life of Mary Stuart in France. 

The misfortunes of Mary Stuart formed the sub- 
ject of one of the series of " Les Crimes Celebres." 
In the opening- words of this chapter, Dumas has 
said, '' Of all the names predestined to misfortune 
in France, it is the name of Henri. Henri I. was 
poisoned, Henri 11. was killed (maliciously, so some 
one has said) in a tournament, Henri III. and 
Henri IV. were assassinated." In Scotland it is 
the name of Stuart. 

The chronicle concerns France only with respect 
to the farewell of Mary, after having lost her 
mother and her spouse in the same year (1561). 
She journeyed to Scotland by Calais, accompanied 
by the Cardinals de Guise and de Lorraine, her 
uncles, by the Due and Duchesse de Guise, the Due 
d'Aumale, and M. de Nemours. 

Here took place that heartrending farewell, 
which poets and painters, as well as historians and 
novelists, have done so much to perpetuate. " Adieu, 
France! " she sobbed. " Adieu, France! " And for 
five hours she continued to weep and sob, " Adieu, 
France ! Adieu, France ! " For the rest, the well- 
known historical figures are made use of by Dumas, 



324 Bumas' Paris 

— Darnley, Rizzio, Huntley, and Hamilton, — but 
the action does not, of course, return tO' France. 

Not far south of Calais is Arras, whence came 
the Robespierre who was to set France aflame. 

" The ancestors of the Robespierres," says Dumas, 
" formed a part of those Irish colonists who came 
to France to inhabit our seminaries and monasteries. 
There they received from the Jesuits the good ed- 
ucations they were accustomed to give to their pupils. 
From father to son they were notaries ; one branch 
of the family, that from which this great man de- 
scends, established himself at Arras, a great centre, 
as you know, of noblesse and the church. 

" There were in this town two seigneurs, or, 
rather, two kings ; one was the Abbe of St. Waast, 
the other was the Bishop of Arras, whose palace 
threw one-half the town into shade." 

The former palace of the Bishop of Arras is 
to-day the local musee. It is an extensive estab- 
lishment, and it flanks an atrocious Renaissance 
cathedral of no appealing charm whatever, and, in- 
deed, the one-time bishop's palace does not look as 
though it was ever a very splendid establishment. 

Still farther to the southward of Calais is the 
feudal Castle of Pierrefonds, so beloved of Porthos 
in " Vingt Ans Apres." It is, and has ever been 
since its erection in 1390 by Louis d'Orleans, the 



Xlbe jftencb pro\>tnces 325 

brother of Charles VI., one of the most highly im- 
pregnable and luxurious chateaux of all France. 

Four times it was unsuccessfully besieged, and 
came finally, in 1617, to be dismantled. 

The great Napoleon purchased it after the Revo- 
lution, and finally, through the liberality of Napo- 
leon III., — one of the few acts which redound to 
his credit, — it was restored, by Viollet-le-Duc, at 
a cost of over five million francs. 

In " Pauline," that fragment which Dumas ex- 
tracted from one of his " Impressions du Voyage," 
the author comes down to modem times, and gives 
us, as he does in his journals of travel, his " Me- 
moires," and others of his lighter pieces of fiction, 
many charming pen-portraits of localities familiar 
not only to his pen, but to his personal experiences. 

He draws in " Pauline " a delightful picture of 
the old fishing-village of Trouville — before it be- 
came a resort of fashion. In his own words he 
describes it as follows: 

" I took the steamer from Havre, and two hours 
later was at Honfleur; the next morning I was at 
Trouville." 

To-day the fly-by-day tourist does the whole 
journey in a couple of hours — if he does not linger 
over the attractions of " Les Petits Chevaux " or 
" Trente et Quarante," at Honfleur's pretty Casino. 



326 Bumas' Paris 

" You know the little town with its population 
of fisher-folk. It is one of the most picturesque in 
Normandy. I stayed there a few days, exploring 
the neighbourhood, and in the evening I used to 
sit in the chimney-corner with my worthy hostess, 
Madame Oseraie. There I heard strange tales of 
adventures which had been enacted in Calvados, 
Loiret, and La Manche." 

Continuing, the author, evidently having become 
imbued with the local colour of the vicinity, de- 
scribes, more or less superficially, perhaps, but still 
with vividness, if not minuteness, those treasure- 
chests of history, the towns and villages of Nor- 
mandy : — Caen, Lisieux, Falaise, the cradle of the 
Conqueror William, " the fertile plains '' around 
Pont Audemer, Havre, and Alengon. 

Normandy, too, was the locale of the early life 
of Gabriel Lambert, the unappealing leading-man of 
that dramatic story of a counterfeiter's life, which 
bears the same title. 

Dumas' first acquaintance with the character in 
real life, — if he had any real personality, as one is 
inclined to think he had, — was at Toulon, where 
the unfortunate man was imprisoned and made to 
work in the galleys. 

In the course of the narrative the scene shifts 
from prisons, galleys, and chain-gangs, backward 



Ube fftencb proptnces 327 

and forward, until we get the whole gamut of the 
criminal's life. 

Gabriel, in the days of his early life at Trouville, 
had acquired the art of skilled penmanship, and 
used it wherever he could for his own advantage, 
by fabricating the handwriting of others — and 
some honest work of a similar nature. 

Finally the call of Paris came strong upon him, 
and he set forth by Pont I'Eveque and Rouen tO' the 
metropolis, where his downfall was speedily con- 
summated, to the sorrow and resentment of his old 
friends of the little Norman fishing-village, and 
more particularly to Marie Granger, his country 
sweetheart, who longed to follow him to Paris, not 
suspecting the actual turn affairs had taken. 

In " The Count of Monte Cristo," Dumas again 
evinces his fondness for, and acquaintance with, the 
coast of Normandy. 

It is a brief reference, to be sure, but it shows 
that Dumas had some considerable liking for the 
sea, and a more or less minute knowledge of the 
coast of France. This is further evinced by the 
details into which he launches once and again, wnth 
reference to the littoral of the Mediterranean, Belle 
He, and its surroundings, and the coasts of Nor- 
mandy, Brittany, and the Pas de Calais. 



328 2)ttmas' Paris 

In " The Count of Monte Cristo," Dantes says to 
his companion, Bertuccio: 

" * I am desirous of having an estate by the sea- 
side in Normandy — for instance, between Havre 
and Boulogne. You see, I give you a wide range. 
It will be absolutely necessary that the place you 
may select have a small harbour, creek, or bay, into 
which my vessel can enter and remain at anchor. 
She merely draws fifteen feet water. She must be 
kept in constant readiness to sail immediately I think 
proper to give the signal. Make the requisite in- 
quiries for a place of this description, and when you 
have met with an eligible spot, visit it, and if it 
possess the advantages desired, purchase it at once 
in your own name. The corvette must now, I think, 
be on her way to Fecamp, must she not ? ' " 

With Brittany, Dumas is quite as familiar. In "Le 
Vicomte de Bragelonne," he gives minute, though 
not wearisome, details of Belle He and the Breton 
coast around about. Aramis, it seems, had acquired 
Belle He, and had risen to high ecclesiastical rank, 
making his home thereon. 

Dumas' love and knowledge of gastronomy comes 
to the fore again here. When D'Artagnan under- 
took his famous journey to Belle He, on the coast 
of Brittany, as messenger of Louis XIV., whom he 
called his sun, after he had bought that snuff- 




NOTRE DAME DE CHARTRES 



Ubc ffrencb prox^tnces 329 

coloured bidet which would have disgraced a cor- 
poral, and after he had shortened his name to 
Agnan, — to complete his disguise, — he put in one 
night at La Roche-Bernard, " a tolerably important 
city at the mouth of the Vilaine, and prepared to 
sup at a hotel." And he did sup; " off a teal and a 
torteaUj and in order to wash down these two dis- 
tinctive Breton dishes, ordered some cider, which, 
the moment it touched his lips, he perceived to be 
more Breton still." 

On the route from Paris to the mouth of the 
Loire, where D'Artagnan departed for Belle He, is 
Chartres. Its Cathedral de Notre Dame has not 
often appeared in fiction. In history and books of 
travel, and of artistic and archaeological interest, 
its past has been vigorously played. 

Dumas, in " La Dame de Monsoreau," has re- 
vived the miraculous legend which tradition has 
preserved. 

It recounts a ceremony which many will consider 
ludicrous, and yet others sacrilegious. Dumas de- 
scribes it thus: 

" The month of April had arrived. The great 
cathedral of Chartres was hung with white, and 
the king was standing barefooted in the nave. The 
religious ceremonies, which were for the purpose 
of praying for an heir to the throne of France, 



33 o Dumas' Paris 

were just finishing, when Henri, in the midst of 
the general silence, heard what seemed to him a 
stifled laugh. He turned around to see if Chicot 
were there, for he thought no one else would have 
dared tO' laugh at such a time. It was not, however, 
Chicot who had laughed at the sight of the two 
chemises of the Holy Virgin, which were said to 
have such a prolific power, and which were just 
being drawn from their golden box; but it was a 
cavalier who had just stopped at the door of the 
church, and who' was making his way with his 
muddy boots through the crowd of courtiers in their 
penitents' robes and sacks. Seeing the king turn, 
he stopped for a moment, and Henri, irritated at 
seeing him arrive thus, threw an angry glance at 
him. The newcomer, however, continued to ad- 
vance until he reached the velvet chair of M. le Due 
d'Anjou, by which be knelt down." 

But a step from Chartres, on the Loire, — though 
Orleans, the '' City of the Maid," comes between, 
— is Blois. 

In " Le Vicomte de Bragelonne," the last of 
the D'Artagnan series, the action comes down to 
later times, to that of the young king Louis XIV. 

In its opening lines its scene is laid in that 
wonderfully ornate and impressive Chateau of Blois, 



XTbe ffrencb provinces 331 

which so many have used as a background for all 
manner of writing. 

Dumas, with his usual directness, wasting no 
words on mere description, and only considering 
it as an accessory to his romance, refers briefly to 
this magnificent building — the combined product 
of the houses whose arms bore the hedgehog and 
the salamander. 

" Toward the middle of the month of May, 1660, 
when the sun was fast absorbing the dew from the 
ravenelles of the Chateau of Blois, a little cavalcade 
entered the city by the bridge, without producing 
any effect upon the passengers of the quai-side, 
except a movement of the tongue to express, in 
the purest French then spoken in France (Touraine 
has ever spoken the purest tongue, as all know), 
* There is Monsieur returning from the hunt.' . . . 
It should have been a trifling source of pride to the 
city of Blois that Gaston of Orleans had chosen it 
as his residence, and held his court in the ancient 
chateau of its states." 

It was in the Castle of the States of Blois that 
Louis XIV. received that unexpected visit from 
" His Majesty Charles II., King of England, Scot- 
land, and Ireland," of which Dumas writes in the 
second of the D'Artagnan series. 

" * How strange it is you are here,' said Louis. 



332 Bumas' Paris 

* I only knew of your embarkation at Brighthelm- 
stone, and your landing in Normandy.' . . . 

" Blois was peaceful that morning of the royal 
arrival, at which announcement it was suddenly filled 
with all the tumult and the buzzing of a swarm of 
bees. In the lower city, scarce a hundred paces 
from the castle, is a sufficiently handsome street 
called the Rue Vieille, and an old and venerable 
edifice which, tradition says, was habited by a coun- 
cillor of state, to whom Queen Catherine came, some 
say to visit and others to strangle." 

Not alone is Blois reminiscent of " Les Mous- 
quetaires," but the numberless references in the 
series to Langeais, Chambord, — the chateaux and 
their domains, — bring to mind more forcibly than 
by innuendo merely that Dumas himself must have 
had some great fondness for what has come to be 
the touring-ground of France par excellence. 

From " Le Vicomte de Bragelonne," one quotes 
these few lines which, significantly, suggest much : 
" Do you not remember, Montalais, the woods of 
Chaverney, and of Chambord, and the numberless 
poplars of Blois ? " This describes the country con- 
cisely, but explicitly. 

Beyond Blois, beyond even Tours, which is Blois' 
next neighbour, passing down the Loire, is Angers. 

In " La Dame de Monsoreau," more commonly 




CASTLE OF ANGEFtS. CHATEAU OF P.LOIS 



Ubc fvcnch lpto\?tnce0 333 

known in English translations as " Chicot the 
Jester," much of the scene is laid in Anjou. 

To Angers, with its wonderful fairylike castle, 
with its seventeen black-banded towers (recalling, 
also, that this is the " Black Angers " of Shake- 
speare's " King John "), repaired the Due d' Anjou, 
the brother of Charles IX. and Henri III., who then 
reigned at Paris. 

To this " secret residence " the due came. Dumas 
puts it thus : 

" * Gentlemen ! ' cried the duke, ' 1 have come to 
throw myself into my good city of Angers. At 
Paris the most terrible dangers have menaced my 
life.' . . . The people then cried out, * Long live 
our seigneur ! ' " 

Bussy, who had made the way clear for the due, 
lived, says Dumas, " in a tumble-down old house 
near the ramparts." The ducal palace was actually 
outside the castle walls, but the frowning battle- 
ment was relied upon to shelter royalty when occa- 
sion required, the suite quartering themselves in the 
Gothic chateau, which is still to be seen in the 
debris-cluttered lumber-yard, to which the interior 
of the fortress has to-day descended. 

In other respects than the shocking care, or, 
rather, the lack of care, which is given to its interior, 
the Castle of Angers, with its battalion of tours. 



334 Dumas' Paris 

now without their turrets, its deep, machicolated 
walls, and its now dry fosse, presents in every way 
an awe-inspiring stronghold. 

Beyond Angers, toward the sea, is Nantes, fa- 
mous for the Edict, and, in " The Regent's Daugh- 
ter " of Dumas, the massacre of the four Breton 
conspirators. 

Gaston, the hero of the tale, had ridden post- 
haste from Paris to save his fellows. He was pre- 
ceded, by two hours, by the order for their exe- 
cution, and the reprieve which he held would be 
valueless did he arrive too late. 

" On reaching the gates of Nantes his horse 
stumbled, but Gaston did not lose his stirrups, pulled 
him up sharply, and, driving the spurs into- his sides, 
he made him recover himself. 

" The night was dark, no one appeared upon the 
ramparts, the very sentinels were hidden in the 
gloom; it seemed like a deserted city. 

" But as he passed the gate a sentinel said some- 
thing which Gaston did not even hear. 

" He held on his way. 

" At the Rue du Chateau his horse stumbled and 
fell, this time to rise no more. 

" What mattered it to Gaston now ? — he had 
arrived. ... 

" He passed right through the castle, when he 



XTbe ffrencb provinces 33s 

perceived the esplanade, a scaffold, and a crowd. 
He tried to cry, but no one heard him ; to wave his 
handkerchief, but no one saw him. . . . Another 
mounts the scaffold, and, uttering a cry, Gaston 
threw himself down below. . . . Four men died 
who might have been saved had Gaston but ar- 
rived five minutes before, and, by a remarkable con- 
tretemps, Gaston himself shared the same fate." 

In " The Regent's Daughter," Dumas describes 
the journey to Nantes with great preciseness, though 
with no excess of detail. The third chapter opens 
thus : 

" Three nights after that on which we have seen 
the regent, first at Chelles, and then at Meudon, a 
scene passed in the environs of Nantes which cannot 
be omitted in this history; we will therefore exer- 
cise our privilege of transporting the reader to that 
place. 

" On the road to Clisson, two' or three miles from 
Nantes, — near the convent known as the residence 
of Abelard, — was a large dark house, surrounded 
by thick, stunted trees; hedges everywhere sur- 
rounded the enclosure outside the walls, hedges im- 
pervious to the sight, and only interrupted by a 
wicket gate. 

" This gate led into a garden, at the end of which 
was a wall, having a small, massive, and closed 



33^ 2)umas' Paris 

door. From a distance this grave and dismal resi- 
dence appeared like a prison; it was, however, a 
convent, full of young Augustines, subject to a rule 
lenient as compared with provincial customs, but 
rigid as compared with those of Paris. 

" The house was inaccessible on three sides, but 
the fourth, which did not face the road, abutted on 
a large sheet of water; and ten feet above its sur- 
face were the windows of the refectory. 

" This little lake was carefully guarded, and was 
surrounded by high wooden palisades. A single 
iron gate opened into it, and at the same time gave 
a passage to the waters of a small rivulet which fed 
the lake, and the water had egress at the opposite 
end." 

From this point on, the action of " The Regent's 
Daughter " runs riotously rapid, until It finally cul- 
minates, so far as Nantes is concerned, in the quin- 
tuple execution before the chateau, brought about 
by the five minutes' delay of Gaston with the re- 
prieve. 

Dumas' knowledge of and love of the Mediter- 
ranean was great, and he knew its western shores 
intimately. 

In 1830 he resolved to visit all the shores of the 



Ubc ffrencb provinces 337 

Mediterranean in a yacht, which he had had specially 
built for the purpose, called the Emma. 

He arrived in Sicily, however, at the moment of 
the Garibaldian struggle against the King of Italy, 
with the result that the heroic elements of that 
event so appealed to him, that he forewent the other 
more tranquil pleasure of continuing his voyage, and 
went over to the mainland. 

In " The Count of Monte Cristo " is given one 
of Dumas' best bits of descriptive writing. At any 
rate, it describes one of the aspects of the brilliantly 
blue Mediterranean, which is only comparable to 
one's personal contemplation of its charms. It is 
apropos of the voyage to the island of Monte Cristo 
— which lies between Elba and Corsica, and has 
become fabled in the minds of present-day readers 
solely by Dumas' efforts — that he wrote the follow- 
ing: 

" It was about six o'clock in the evening ; an opal- 
coloured light, through which an autumnal sun shed 
its golden rays, descended on the blue sea. The 
heat of the day had gradually decreased, and a light 
breeze arose, seeming like the respiration of nature 
on awakening from the burning siesta of the south ; 
a delicious zephyr played along the coasts of the 
Mediterranean, and wafted from shore to shore the 



33^ H)umas' parts 

sweet perfume of plants, mingled with the fresh 
smell of the sea. 

" A light yacht, chaste and elegant in its form, 
was gliding amidst the first dews of night over the 
immense lake, extending from Gibraltar to the Dar- 
danelles, and from Tunis to Venice. The motion 
resembled that of a swan with its wings opened 
toward the wind, gliding on the water. It ad- 
vanced, at the same time, swiftly and gracefully, 
leaving behind it a glittering track. By degrees 
the sun disappeared behind the western horizon; 
but, as though to prove the truth of the fanciful 
ideas in heathen mythology, its indiscreet rays re- 
appeared on the summit of each wave, seeming to 
reveal that the god of fire had just enfolded himself 
in the bosom of Amphitrite, who in vain endeav- 
oured to hide her lover beneath her azure mantle." 

Of the island of Monte Cristo itself, Dumas' de- 
scription is equally gratifying. In the earlier chap- 
ters he gives it thus : 

" The isle of Monte Cristo loomed large in the 
horizon. . . . They were just abreast of Mareciana, 
and beyond the flat but verdant isle of La Pianosa. 
The peak of Monte CristO', reddened by the burning 
sun, was seen against the azure sky. . . . About 
five o'clock in the evening the island was quite dis- 
tinct, and everything on it was plainly perceptible, 



Ube fftencb provinces 339 

owing to that clearness of the atmosphere which is 
pecuHar to the Hght which the rays of the sun cast 
at its setting. 

'' Edmond gazed most earnestly at the mass of 
rocks which gave out all the variety of twilight 
colours, from the brightest pink to the deepest blue ; 
and from time to time his cheeks flushed, his brow 
became purple, and a mist passed over his eyes. . . . 
In spite of his usual command over himself, Dantes 
could not restrain his impetuosity. He was the first 
who jumped on shore; and had he dared, he would, 
like Lucius Brutus, have * kissed his mother earth.' 
It was dark, but at eleven o'clock the moon rose in 
the midst of the ocean, whose every wave she sil- 
vered, and then, * ascending high,' played in floods 
of pale light on the rocky hills of this second Pelion. 

" The island was familiar to the crew of La 
Jeune Amelie — it was one of her halting-places. 
As to Dantes, he had passed it on his voyages to and 
from the Levant, but never touched at it." 

It is unquestionable that " The Count of Monte 
Cristo " is the most popular and the best known of 
all Dumas' works. There Is a deal of action, of 
personality and characterization, and, above all, an 
ever-shifting panorama, which extends from the 
boulevards of Marseilles to the faubourgs of Paris, 
and from the island Chateau d'lf to the equally 



340 Dumas* parts 

melancholy allecs of Pere la Chaise, which M. de 
Villefort, a true Parisian, considered alone worthy 
of receiving the remains of a Parisian family, as 
it was there only that they would be surrounded by 
worthy associates. 

All travellers for the East, via the Mediterranean, 
know well the ancient Phoenician port of Marseilles. 
One does not need even the words of Dumas to 
recall its picturesqueness and importance — to-day 
as in ages past. Still, the opening lines of " The 
Count of Monte Cristo " do form a word-picture 
which few have equalled in the pages of romance; 
and there is not a word too much; nothing super- 
fluous or extraneous. 

''On the 28th of February, 181 5, the watch- 
tower of Notre Dame de la Garde signalled the 
three-master, the Pharaon, from Smyrna, Trieste, 
and Naples. 

" As usual, a pilot put off immediately, and, 
rounding the Chateau dTf, got on board the vessel 
between Cape Morgion and the isle of Rion. 

" Immediately, and according to custom, the plat- 
form of Fort Saint-Jean was covered with look- 
ers-on; it is always an event at Marseilles for a 
ship to come into port, especially when this ship, 
like the Pharaon^ had been built, rigged, and laden 



Ube ffrencb provinces 341 

on the stocks of the old Phocee, and belonged to 
an owner of the city. 

" The ship drew on : it had safely passed the 
strait, which some volcanic shock has made between 
the isle of Calasareigne and the isle of Jaros; had 
doubled Pomegue, and approached the harbour un- 
der topsails, jib, and foresail, but so slowly and 
sedately that the idlers, with that instinct which 
misfortune sends before it, asked one another what 
misfortune could have happened on board. How- 
ever, those experienced in navigation saw plainly 
that, if any accident had occurred, it was not to the 
vessel herself, for she bore down with all the evi- 
dence of being skilfully handled, the anchor ready 
to be dropped, the bowsprit-shrouds loose, and, be- 
side the pilot, who was steering the Pharaon by the 
narrow entrance of the port Marseilles, was a young 
man, who, with activity and vigilant eye, watched 
every motion of the ship, and repeated each direction 
of the pilot. 

" The vague disquietude which prevailed amongst 
the spectators had so much affected one of the 
crowd that he did not await the arrival of the vessel 
in harbour, but, jumping into a small skiff, desired 
to be pulled alongside the Pharaon, which he reached 
as she rounded the creek of La Reserve." 

The process of coming into harbour at Marseilles 



342 Dumas' parts 

does not differ greatly to-day from the description 
given by Dumas. 

New harbour works have been constructed, and 
saiHng-ships have mostly given way to great steam- 
ers, but the channel winds and twists as of old 
under the lofty brow, capped by the sailors' church 
of Notre Dame de la Garde, which is to-day a 
tawdry, bizarre shrine, as compared with the motive 
which inspired the devout to ascend its heights to 
pray for those who go down to the sea in ships. 

Marseilles, of all cities of France, more even than 
Bordeaux or Lyons, is possessed of that individual- 
ity which stands out strong on the background of 
France — the land and the nation. 

In the commercial world its importance gives it 
a high rank, and its aif aires are regulated by no 
clues sent each morning by post or by telegraph 
from the world's other marts of trade. It has, more- 
over, in the Canebiere, one of the truly great streets 
of the world. Dumas remarked it, and so, too, have 
many others, who know its gay cosmopolitan aspect 
at all the hours of day and night. 

From " The Count of Monte Cristo," the follow- 
ing lines describe it justly and truly, and in a way 
that fits it admirably, in spite of the fact that Dumas 
wrote of it as it was a hundred years ago : 

" The young sailor jumped into the skiff, and 



Ube ffrencb provinces 343 

sat down in the stern, desiring to be put ashore at 
the Canebiere. The two rowers bent to their work, 
and the Httle boat ghded away as rapidly as possi- 
ble in the midst oi the thousand vessels which choke 
up the narrow way which leads between the two 
rows of ships from the mouth of the harbour to the 
Quai d'Orleans. 

" The ship-owner, smiling, followed him with his 
eyes until he saw him spring out on the quai and 
disappear in the midst of the throng, which, from 
five o'clock in the morning until nine o'clock at 
night, choke up this famous street of La Canebiere, 
of which the modern Phoceens are so proud, and 
say, with all the gravity in the world, and with that 
accent which gives so much character to what is 
said, * If Paris had La Canebiere, Paris would be 
a second Marseilles/ " 

The Chateau d'lf, far more than the island of 
Monte Cristo itself, is the locale which is mostly re- 
called with regard to the romance of " Monte 
Cristo." 

Dumas has, of course, made melodramatic use of 
it; in fact, it seems almost as if he had built the 
romance around its own restricted pied a terre, but, 
nevertheless, it is the one element which we are 
pleased to call up as representative of the story 
when mention is made thereof. 



344 Dumas' parts 

Not a line, not a word, is misplaced in the chap- 
ters in which Dumas treats of Dantes' incarceration 
in his island prison. Description does not crowd 
upon action or characterization, nor the reverse. 

" Through the grating of the window of the car- 
riage, Dantes saw they were passing through the 
Rue Caisserie, and by the Quai St. Laurent and the 
Rue Taramis, to the port. They advanced toward 
a boat which a custom-house officer held by a chain 
near the quai. A shove sent the boat adrift, and 
the oarsman plied it rapidly toward the Pilon. At 
a shout the chain that closes the port was lowered, 
and in a second they were outside the harbour. . . . 
They had passed the Tete de More, and were now 
in front of the lighthouse and about to double the 
battery. . . . They had left the isle Ratonneau, 
where the lighthouse stood, on the right, and were 
now opposite the Point des Catalans. 

" * Tell me where you are conducting me? ' asked 
Dantes of his guard. 

" * You are a native of Marseilles, and a sailor, 
and yet you do not know where you are going ? ' 

" * On my honour, I have no idea.' 

" * That is impossible.' 

" * I swear to you it is true. Tell me, I entreat.' 

" * But my orders.' 

" ' Your orders do not forbid your telling me 



XTbe jfrencb provinces 345 

what I must know in ten minutes, in half an hour, 
or an hour. You see, I cannot escape, even if I 
intended/ 

" * Unless you are blind, or have never been out- 
side the harbour, you must know.' 

" ' I do not.' 

" * Look around you, then.' Dantes rose and 
looked forward, when he saw rise within a hundred 
yards of him the black and frowning rock on which 
stands the Chateau d'If. This gloomy fortress, 
which has for more than three hundred years fur- 
nished food for so many wild legends, seemed to 
Dantes like a scaffold to a malefactor. 

" ' The Chateau d'If? ' cried he. * What are we 
going there for ? ' The gendarme smiled. 

*' ' I am not going there to be imprisoned,' said 
Dantes ; * it is only used for political prisoners. I 
have committed no crime. Are there any magis- 
trates or judges at the Chateau d'If? ' 

" ' There are only,' said the gendarme, * a gov- 
ernor, a garrison, turnkeys, and good thick walls. 
Come, come, do not look so astonished, or you will 
make me think you are laughing at me in return 
for my good nature.' Dantes pressed the gen- 
darme's hand as though he would crush it. 

" * You think, then,' said he, * that I am conducted 
to the chateau to be imprisoned there ? ' 



346 2)umas' parts 

" ' It is probable/ " 

The details of Dantes' horrible confinement, at 
first in an upper cell, and later in a lower dungeon, 
where, as " No. 34," he became the neighbour of the 
old Abbe Faria, " No. 27,'' are well known of all 
lovers of Dumas. The author does not weary one, 
and there are no lengthy descriptions dragged in 
to merely fill space. When Dantes finally escapes 
from the chateau, after he had been imprisoned for 
fourteen years, Dumas again launches into that con- 
cise, direct word-painting which proclaims him the 
master. 

" It was necessary for Dantes to strike out to sea. 
Ratonneau and Pomegue are the nearest isles of 
all those that surround the Chateau dTf; but Ra- 
tonneau and Pomegue are inhabited, together with 
the islet of Daume ; Tiboulen or Lemaire were the 
most secure. The isles of Tiboulen and Lemaire are 
a league from the Chateau dTf. . . . 

" Before him rose a mass of strangely formed 
rocks, that resembled nothing so much as a vast 
fire petrified at the moment of its most fervent com- 
bustion. It was the isle of Tiboulen. . . . 

" As he rose, a flash of lightning, that seemed 
as if the whole of the heavens were opened, illu- 
mined the darkness. By its light, he saw the isle of 



XTbe ffrencb provinces 347 

Lemaire and Cape Croiselle, a quarter of a league 
distant." 

In " The Count of Monte Cristo," Dumas makes 
a little journey up the valley of the Rhone into 
Provence. 

In the chapter entitled " The Auberge of the Pont 
du Card," he writes, in manner unmistakably famil- 
iar, of this land of the troubadours, the roses, and 
the beautiful women; for the women of Aries — 
those world-famous Arlesiennes — are the peers, in 
looks, of all the women of France. 

Dumas writes of Beaucaire, of Bellegarde, of 
Aries, and of Aigues-Mortes, but not very affec- 
tionately; indeed, he seems to think all Provence 
" an arid, sterile lake," but he comes out strong on 
the beauty of the women of Aries, and marvels 
how they can live in the vicinity of the devastating 
fevers of the Camargue. 

The auberge of the Pont du Garde itself — the 
establishment kept by the old tailor, Caderousse, 
whom Dantes sought out after his escape from the 
Chateau dTf — the author describes thus: 

" Such of my readers as have made a pedestrian 
excursion to the south of France may perchance 
have noticed, midway between the town of Beau- 
caire and the village of Bellegarde, a small roadside 
inn, from the front of which hung, creaking and 



348 Dumas' Paris 

flapping in the wind, a sheet of tin covered with a 
caricature resemblance of the Pont du Gard. This 
modem place of entertainment stood on the left- 
hand side of the grand route, turning its back upon 
the Rhone. It also boasted of what in Languedoc 
is styled a garden, consisting of a small plot of 
ground, a full view of which might be obtained from 
a door immediately opposite the grand portal hj 
which travellers were ushered in to partake of the 
hospitality of mine host of the Pont du Gard. This 
plaisance or garden, scorched up beneath the ardent 
sun of a latitude of thirty degrees, permitted nothing 
to thrive or scarcely live in its arid soil. A few 
dingy olives and stunted fig-trees struggled hard 
for existence, but their withered, dusty foliage 
abundantly proved how unequal was the conflict. 
Between these sickly shrubs grew a scanty supply 
of garlic, tomatoes, and eschalots; while, lone and 
solitary, like a forgotten sentinel, a tall pine raised 
its melancholy head in one of the corners of this 
unattractive spot, and displayed its flexible stem 
and fan-shaped summit dried and cracked by the 
withering influence of the mistral, that scourge of 
Provence." 

The great fair of Beaucaire was, and is, — though 
Beaucaire has become a decrepit, tumble-down river 



XTbe ffrencb IPtox^inces 349 

town on the Rhone, with a ruined castle as its chief 
attraction, — renowned throughout France. 

It was here that the head of the house of Morrel, 
fearing lest the report of his financial distress should 
get bruited abroad at Marseilles, came to sell his 
wife's and daughter's jewels, and a portion of his 
plate. 

This fair of Beaucaire attracted a great number 
of merchants of all branches of trade, who' arrived 
by water and by road, lining the banks of the Rhone 
from Aries to Beaucaire, and its transpontine neigh- 
bour, Tarascon, which Daudet has made famous. 

Caderousse, the innkeeper, visited this fair, as 
we learn, " in company with a man who was evi- 
dently a stranger to the south of France; one of 
those merchants who come to sell jewelry at the 
fair of Beaucaire, and who, during the month the 
fair lasts, and during which there is so great an 
influx of merchants and customers from all parts 
of Europe, often have dealings to the amount of 
one hundred thousand to one hundred and fifty 
thousand francs (£4,000 to £6,000)." 

That Dumas was a great traveller is well known 
and substantiated by the records he has left. 

When living at Toulon in the spring of 1835, as 
he himself tells us, he first came into possession of 



350 Dumas' parts 

the facts which led to the construction of " Gabriel 
Lambert/' 

There was doubtless much of truth in the tale, 
which appears not to be generally known to English 
readers, and it is more than probable that much of 
the incident was originally related to Dumas by the 
" governor of the port." 

Dumas was living at the time in a " small sub- 
urban house," within a stone's throw of Fort 
Lamalge, the prison, hard at work on his play of 
"Captain Paul" — though, as he says, he was greatly 
abstracted from work by the " contemplation of the 
blue Mediterranean spangled with gold, the moun- 
tains that blind in their awful nakedness, and of 
the sky impressive in its depth and clearness." 

The result of it all was that, instead of working 
at " Captain Paul " (Paul Jones), he left off work- 
ing at all, in the daytime, — no infrequent occur- 
rence among authors, — and, through his acquaint- 
ance with the governor, evolved the story of the life- 
history of " Gabriel Lambert." 

" Murat " was the single-worded title given by 
Dumas to what is perhaps the most subtle of the 
" Crimes Celebres." He drew his figures, of course, 
from history, and from a comparatively near view- 



Ubc ffrencb Iprovinces 351 

point, considering that but twenty-five years had 
elapsed since the death of his subject. 

Marseilles, Provence, Hyeres, Toulon, and others 
of those charming tow^ns and cities of the Mediter- 
ranean shore, including also Corsica, form the rapid 
itinerary of the first pages. 

For the action itself, it resembles nothing which 
has gone before, or which is so very horrible. It 
simply recounts the adventures and incidents in the 
life of the Marshal of France which befel his later 
years, and which culminated in his decapitated head 
being brought before the King of Naples as the 
only assurance which would satisfy him that Murat 
was not an adventurer and intriguer. 

There is a pleasant little town in the Midi of 
France by the name of Cahors. It is a historic 
town as well; in fact, it was part of the dowry 
which Henri de Navarre was tO' receive when he 
married Marguerite. 

The circumstance is recounted by Dumas in " The 
Forty-Five Guardsmen," and extends to some length 
in the most marvellously descriptive dialogue. 

" The poor Henri de Navarre," as Dumas called 
him, '' was to receive as his wife's dowry three 
hundred thousand golden crowns and some towns, 
among them Cahors. 

" * A pretty town, mordieu! ' 



352 Dumas' pads 

" * I have claimed not the money, but Cahors/ 

" * You would much like to hold Cahors, Sire? ' 

" * Doubtless; for, after all, what is my princi- 
pality of Beam ? A poor little place, clipped by the 
avarice of my mother-in-law and brother-in-law.' 

" ' While Cahors — ' 

Cahors would be my rampart, the safeguard 
of my religion/ 

" ' Well, Sire, go into mourning for Cahors ; for, 
whether you break with Madame Marguerite or 
not, the King of France will never give it to you, 
and unless you take it — ' 

" ' Oh, I would soon take it, if it was not so 
strong, and, above all, if I did not hate war/ 

" ' Cahors is impregnable, Sire.' 

" * Oh ! impregnable ! But if I had an army, 
which I have not — ' 

" * Listen, Sire. We are not here to flatter each 
other. To take Cahors, which is held by M. de 
Vezin, one must be a Hannibal or a Caesar; and 
your Majesty — ' 

" * Well ? ' said Henri, with a smile. 

" * Has just said you do not like war.' . . . 

" * Cahors is so well guarded, because it is the 
key of the south.' " 

Chapter fifty-three of the above book recounts 
the siege itself, — as we know it in history, — but 



Zbc jFrencb IProvinces 3S3 

with all that added picturesqueness which Dumas 
commanded. 

" * Henri will not pay me his sister's dowry, and 
Margot cries out for her dear Cahors. One must 
do what one's wife wants, for peace's sake; therei- 
fore I am going to try to take Cahors.' . . . 

" Henri set off at full gallop, and Chicot followed 
him. On arriving in front of his little army, Henri 
raised his visor, and cried : 

" * Out with the banner! out with' the new 
banner ! ' 

" They drew forth the banner, which had the 
double scutcheon of Navarre and Bourbon; it was 
white, and had chains of gold on one side, and 
fleurs-de-lis on the other. 

" Again the cannon from Cahors were fired, and 
the balls tore through a file of infantry near the 
king. . . . 

" ' Oh ! ' cried M. de Turenne, * the siege of the 
city is over, Vezin.' And as he spoke he fired at 
him and wounded him in the arm.' . . . 

" * You are wrong, Turenne,' cried M. de Vezin ; 
* there are twenty sieges in Cahors ; so, if one is 
over, there are nineteen to come.' 

" M. de Vezin defended himself during five days 
and nights from street to street and from house to 
house. Luckily for the rising fortunes of Henri of 



354 Dumas' pads 

Navarre, he had counted too much on the walls and 
garrison of Cahors, and had neglected to send to 
M. de Biron. . . . 

" During these five days and iiights, Henri com- 
manded like a captain and fought like a soldier, 
slept with his head on a stone, and awoke sword in 
hand. Each day they conquered a street or a square, 
which each night the garrison tried to retake. On 
the fourth night the enemy seemed willing to give 
some rest to the Protestant army. Then it was 
Henri who attacked in his turn. He forced an 
intrenched position, but it cost him seven hundred 
men. M. de T'urenne and nearly all the officers 
were wounded, but the king remained untouched." 

The Pyrenean city of Pau is more than once re- 
ferred to by Dumas in the Valois romances, as was 
but natural, considering that its ancient chateau 
was the herceau of that Prince of Beam who later 
married the intriguing Marguerite, and became ulti- 
mately Henri IV. 

This fine old structure — almost the only really 
splendid historical monument of the city — had for 
long been the residence of the Kings of Navarre; 
was rebuilt in the fourteenth century by the brilliant 
Gaston Phoebus; and enlarged and luxuriously em- 
bellished by the beautiful Marguerite herself in the 



Ube ffrencb provinces 35s 

sixteenth century, after she had become la femme 
de Henri d' Albert , as her spouse was then known. 

As might be expected, Dumas was exceedingly 
famihar with the suburban topography of Paris, 
and made frequent use of it in his novels. 

It is in " The Count of Monte Cristo," however, 
that this intimacy is best shown; possibly for the 
reason that therein he dealt with times less remote 
than those of the court romances of the " Valois " 
and the " Capets." 

When Dantes comes tO' Paris, — as the newly 
made count, — he forthwith desires to be ensconced 
in an establishment of his own. Dumas recounts 
the incident thus : 

" * And the cards I ordered to be engraved as 
soon as you knew the number of the house?' 

" * M. le Comte, it is done already. I have been 
myself to the best engraver of the Palais Royal, 
who did the plate in my presence. The first card 
struck off was taken, according to your orders, to 
M. le Baron Danglars, Rue de la Chaussee d'Antin, 
No. 7.' . . . 

" As the steward had said, the notary awaited him 
in the small salon. He was a simple-looking law- 
yer's clerk, elevated tO' the extraordinary dignity 
of a provincial scrivener. 

" ' You are the notary empowered to sell the 



356 Bumas' parts 

country-house that I wish to purchase, monsieur?' 
asked Monte Cristo. 

* Yes, M. le Comte,' returned the notary. 
' Is the deed of sale ready ? ' 
' Yes, M. le Comte.' 

* Have you brought it ? ' 

* Here it is/ 

* Very well ; and where is this house that I 
purchase ? ' asked the count, carelessly, addressing- 
himself half to Bertuccio, half to the notary. The 
steward made a gesture that signified, * I do not 
know/ The notary looked at the count with as- 
tonishment. 

" * What ! ' said he, * does not M. le Comte know 
where the house he purchases is situated ? ' 

" * No,' returned the count. 

" * M. le Comte does not know it ? ' 

" * How should I know it ? I have arrived from 
Cadiz this morning. I have never before been at 
Paris : and it is the first time I have ever even set 
my foot in France ! ' 

" * Ah, that is different ; the house you purchase 
is situated at Auteuil, in the Rue de la Fontaine, 
No. 28.' At these words Bertuccio turned pale. 

" * And where is Auteuil ? ' asked the count. 

" * Close here, monsieur,' replied the notary ; * a 



Ube ifrencb provinces 3S7 

little beyond Passy; a charming situation, in the 
heart of the Bois de Boulogne/ 

" * So near as that ? ' said the count. * But that 
is not in the country. What made you choose a 
house at the gates of Paris, M. Bertuccio ? ' 

" * I ? ' cried the steward, with a strange ex- 
pression. * M. le Comte did not charge me to pur- 
chase this house. If M. le Comte will recollect — 
if he will think — ' 

" * Ah, true,' observed Monte Cristo; ' I recollect 
now. I read the advertisement in one of the papers, 
and was tempted by the false title, " a country- 
house." ' 

" * It is not yet too late,' cried Bertuccio, eagerly ; 
' and if your Excellency will entrust me with the 
commission, I will find you a better at Enghien, at 
Fontenay-aux-Roses, or at Bellevue.' 

"*Oh, no,' returned Monte Cristo, negligently; 
* since I have this, I will keep it.' 

" * And you are quite right,' said the notary, who 
feared to lose his fee. ' It is a charming place, well 
supplied with spring- water and fine trees; a com- 
fortable habitation, although abandoned for a long 
time; without reckoning the furniture, which, al- 
though old, is yet valuable, now that old things are 
so much sought after. I suppose M. le Comte has 
the tastes of the day?'" 



35^ Dumas' Paris 

Whatever may have been Dumas' prodigality 
with regard to money matters in his personal affairs, 
he was evidently a good traveller, in the sense that 
he knew how to plan a journey with the greatest 
economy. 

One sees evidences of this in the " Count of Monte 
Cristo," where he describes the journey of Madame 
de Morcerf from Paris to Marseilles. 

" * I have made inquiries,' said Albert, * respecting 
the diligences and steamboats, and my calculations 
are made. You will take your place in the coupe 
to Chalons. You see, mother, I treat you hand- 
somely for thirty-five francs.' 

" Albert then took a pen, and wrote : 

Frs. 

Coupd to Chalons, thirty-five francs . . -35 
From Chalons to Lyons you will go on by the steam- 
boat — six francs 6 

From Lyons to Avignon (still by steamboat), sixteen 

francs i6 

From Avignon to Marseilles, seven francs . . 7 
Expenses on the road, about fifty francs . . -50 

Total . 114 

" 'Let US put down 120,' added Albert, smiling. 
* You see I am generous ; am I not, mother ? ' 
" ' But you, my poor child ? * 



Zbc ffrencb provinces 359 

" * I ! do you not see I reserve eighty francs for 
myself? A young man does not require luxuries; 
besides, I know what travelling is.' 

" * With a post-chaise and valet de chamhre? ' " 
The route is practicable even to-day, though prob- 
ably not at the prices given, and one does not go 
by steamboat from Chalons to Lyons, though he may 
from Lyons to Avignon. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



LES PAYS ETRANGERS 



jrXUMAS frequently wandered afield for his 
I t mise-en-scene J and with varying success; 
from the " Corsican Brothers," which was 
remarkably true to its locale, and " La Tulipe 
Noire/' which was equally so, if we allow for a 
certain perspective of time, to " Le Capitaine Pam- 
phile," which in parts, at least, is gross exaggeration 
or burlesque. 

Once only, to any great extent, did he go to Ger- 
many for his inspirations, and then only to German 
legend, — where so many others had been before, — 
and have since. 

In " Otho the Archer " is found a repetition of the 
Knight and Swan legend so familiar to all. It has 
been before — and since — a prolific source of sup- 
ply to authors of all ranks and nationalities : Goethe, 
Schiller, Hoffman, Brentano, Fouque, Scott, and 
others. 

The book first appeared in 1840, before even 
360 



" Monte Cristo " and " Les Trois Mousquetaires " 
were published as feuilletons, and hence, whatever 
its merits may be, it is to be classed as one of his 
immature efforts, rather than as a piece of pro- 
found romancing. 

The story oi adventure, of battle, and of love- 
making is all there, but his picture of the scenery 
and life of the middle ages on the Rhine are, of 
course, as purely imaginary as is the romantic back- 
ground of myth and legend. 

Of all the works dealing with foreign lands, — 
or, at least, foreign to his pen, — Dumas' " Black 
Tulip " will ever take a preeminent rank. Therein 
are pictures of Holland life and of the Hollandaise 
which, like the pen-drawings of Stevenson in 
" Catriona," will live far more vividly in the minds 
of most readers than volumes of mere dissertation 
written by others. 

The story opens with a recounting of the tragedy 
of the brothers Cornelius and Jacobus de Windt, 
which, though not differing greatly from historical 
fact, is as vivid and terrible an account of the per- 
secutions of mortal man as any similar incident in 
romance itself, of whatever age and by whomever 
written. 

Dumas was in Amsterdam, in 1849, ^^ the coro- 
nation of William HI., where it has been said — 



362 Dumas' Paris 

by FlotO'W, the composer — that the king remarked 
to Dumas that none of the scenes of his romances 
had as yet been laid in the Netherlands, and there- 
upon told him what was substantially the story of 
" La Tulipe Noire." This first appeared as the prod- 
uct of Dumas' hand and brain in 1850. 

This is perhaps more or less a legendary account 
of its inception; like many another of the reasons 
for being of Dumas' romances, but it is sufficiently 
plausible and well authenticated to warrant accept- 
ance, though it has been said, too, that it was to 
Paul Lacroix — " Bibliophile Jacob " — that Dumas 
owed the idea of the tale. 

At all events, it is a charming pen-picture of 
Holland; shows a wonderful love and knowledge 
of the national flower, the tulip, and is one of the 
most popular of all Dumas' tales, if we except the 
three cycles of romances, whose scenes and incidents 
are based on the history of French court life. 

Not for many years did the translators leave " La 
Tulipe Noire " unnoticed, and for over a half- 
century it has enjoyed a vogue which is at least 
comprehensible. 

Its plot and characters are most ingeniously 
and dextrously handled, but its greatest charm is 
incident to the process of evolving the famous black 
tulip from among the indigenous varieties which, 



%cs iPai^s Btrangers 36s 

at the time of the scene of the novel, had not got 
beyond the brilHantly variegated yellows and reds. 
From the various stages of mauve, purple, brown, 
and, finall}^, something very nearly akin to black, 
the flowering bulb finally took form, as first pre- 
sented to a wide-spread public by Dumas. 

The celebrated Alphonse Karr, a devoted lover of 
flowers, took the trouble to make a " romancers' 
garden," composed of trees and flowers which con- 
temporary novelists, finding the laws of nature too 
narrow for them, had described in their books. This 
imaginary garden owed to George Sand a blue 
chr3^santhemum, to Victor HugO' a Bengal rose 
without thorns, to Balzac a climbing azalea, to Jules 
Janin a blue pink, to Madame de Genlis a green 
rose, to Eugaie Sue a variety of cactus growing 
in Paris in the open air, to- Paul Feval a variety of 
larch which retained its leaves during winter, 
to Forgues a pretty little pink clematis which flour- 
ished around the windows in the Latin quarter, to 
Rolle a scented camellia, and to Dumas the black 
tulip and a white lotus. The black tulip, it may 
be remarked, though unknown in Dumas' day, has 
now become an accomplished fact. 

Dumas, though not a botanist, had charming, if 
not very precise, notions about flowers, — as about 
animals, — and to him they doubtless said : 



364 Dumas' Paris 

" Nous sommes les filles du feu secret, 
Du feu qui circule dans les veines de la terre ; 
Nous sommes les filles de I'aurore et de la ros^e, 
Nous sommes les filles de I'air, 
Nous sommes les filles de I'eau ; 
Mais nous sommes avant tout les filles du ciel." 



Dumas wandered much farther afield than the 
land of his beloved Valois. To Italy, tO' Spain, to 
Algeria, to Corsica, to Germany, and even to Russia. 
Mostly he made use of his experiences in his books 
of travel, of which '* Les Impressions du Voyage " 
is the chief. 

Who would read the narrative of the transactions 
which took place in Russia's capital in the early 
nineteenth century, should turn to " Les Memoires 
d'un Maitre d'Armes," or " Dix-huit Mois a St. 
Petersburgh." It presents a picture of the Russian 
life of the time, in which — the critics agree — 
there is but slight disguise. Its story — for it is 
confessedly fiction — turns upon the fortunes of a 
young subaltern, who played a considerable part in 
the conspiracy of 1825, and, it has been said by a 
contemporary writer of the time, hardly any cir- 
cumstance but the real name of the young man is 
disguised. 

It is in the main, or, at least, it has for its prin- 
cipal incident, the story of a political exile, and it 



%cs ^a^B strangers 3^5 

is handled with Dumas' vivid and consummate skill, 
which therein proves again that the mere romancist 
had a good deal of the historian about him. 

Besides the locale of " La Tulipe Noire," Dumas 
takes the action of '* The Forty-Five Guardsmen " 
into the Netherlands. Frangois, the Due d'Anjou, 
had entered Belgium and had been elected Due de 
Brabant, Sovereign Prince of Flanders. At this 
time it was supposed that Elizabeth of England 
saw the opportunity of reuniting the Calvinists of 
Flanders and France with those of England, and 
so acquire a triple crown. Then follows an account 
of the attack on Antwerp, which resulted in final 
defeat of the French, and presents one of the most 
graphic descriptions of a battle to be found in 
the pages of Dumas. The historic incident of the 
interview in Due Frangois' tent, between that 
worthy and the French Admiral de Joyeuse, is 
made much of by Dumas, and presents a most 
picturesque account of this bloody battle. The 
topography of Antwerp and the country around 
about is as graphic as a would-be painting. 

" * But,' cried the prince, ' I must settle my posi- 
tion in the country. I am Duke of Brabant and 
Count of Flanders, in name, and I must be so in 
reality. This William, who is gone I know not 
where, spoke to me of a kingdom. Where is this 



366 Dumas' iparts 

kingdom? — in Antwerp. Where is he? — prob- 
ably in Antwerp also ; therefore we must take Ant- 
werp, and we shall know how we stand/ 

" ' Oh ! monseigneur, you know it now, or you 
are, in truth, a worse politician than I thought you. 
Who counselled you to take Antwerp? — the Prince 
of Orange. Who disappeared at the moment of tak- 
ing the field ? — the Prince of Orange. Who, while 
he made your Highness Duke of Brabant, reserved 
for himself the lieutenant-generalship of the duchy ? 

— the Prince of Orange. Whose interest is it to 
ruin the Spaniards by you, and you by the Span- 
iards? — the Prince of Orange. Who will replace 
you, who will succeed, if he does not do so already? 

— the Prince of Orange. Oh! monseigneur, in 
following his counsels you have but annoyed the 
Flemings. Let a reverse come, and all those who do 
not dare to look you now in the face, will run after 
you like those timid dogs who run after those who 
fly.' 

" * What ! you imagine that I can be beaten, by 
wool-merchants and beer-drinkers ? ' 

" * These wool-merchants and these beer-drinkers 
have given plenty to do to Philippe de Valois, the 
Emperor Charles V., and Philippe II., who were 
three princes placed sufficiently high, monseigneur, 
for the comparison not to be disagreeable to you.' " 



%C5 IPa^s jBtxarxQctB 367 

In " Pascal Bruno," Dumas launched Into a story 
of Sicilian brigandage, which has scarce been 
equalled, unless it were in his two other tales of 
similar purport — " Cherubino et Celestine," and 
*' Maitre Adam le Calabrais." 

Originally it formed one of a series which were 
published in one volume — in 1838 — under the 
title of ''La Salle d'Armes, Pauline, et Pascal 
Bruno." 

According to the " Memoires," a favourite ren- 
dezvous of Dumas in Paris, at this period, was 
Grisier's fencing-room. There it was that the maitre 
d'armes handed him the manuscript entitled '' Eight- 
teen Months at St. Petersburg," — that remarkable 
account of a Russian exile, — and it is there that 
Dumas would have his readers to believe that he 
collected the materials for " Pauline " and " Murat." 

The great attraction of " The Corsican Brothers " 
lies not so much with Corsica, the home of the 
vendetta, the land of Napoleon, and latterly known 
politically as the 86me Departement de France, as 
with the events which so closely and strenuously 
encircled the lives of the brothers De Franchi in 
Paris itself. 

Corsican life and topography is limned, however, 
with a fidelity which has too often been lacking in 
Dumas' description of foreign parts. Perhaps, as 



368 Dumas' parts 

has been said before, he extracted this information 
from others ; but more hkely — it seems to the 
writer — it came from his own intimate ac- 
quaintance with that island, as it is known that he 
was a visitor there in 1834. 

If this surmise be correct, the tale was a long 
time in taking shape, — an unusually long time for 
Dumas, — as the book did not appear until 1845, 
the same year as the appearance of " Monte Cristo " 
in book form. 

It was dedicated to Prosper Merimee, whose 
" Colomba " ranks as its equal as a thrilling tale 
of Corsican life. 

It has been remarked that, curiously enough, in 
spite of the fact that the story has been so often 
dramatized and adapted for the stage, — and acted 
by persons of all shades and grades of ability, — 
Dumas never thought well enough of it to have 
given it that turn himself. 

Dumas' acquaintance with Naples never pro- 
duced any more lucid paragraphs descriptive of 
character, and the local colour and scenic effect 
besides, than in the few short pages of " Les Pe- 
cheurs du Filet." It comes, of course, as a result 
of Dumas' rather extended sojourn in Italy. 

When Dumas actually did write scenic descrip- 
tions, they were exceedingly graphic, — though not 



%C5 paps Btrangers 369 

verbose, — and exceedingly picturesque, — though 
not sentimental, — as witness the following lines 
which open the tale — though he does make use a 
little farther on of the now trite tag, " See Naples 
and die/' 

" Every morning on awakening I was in the 
habit of resting my elbows on the window-sill and 
gazing far out over the limpid and sparkling mirror 
of the Tyrrhenian Sea. ... At night the bay is so 
intensely blue that, under more favourable con- 
ditions, it resembles those leaden-hued lakes, such 
as Avernus, the Fucine Lake, or Lake Agnano, — 
all in the neighbourhood of Naples, which cover the 
craters of extinct volcanoes." 

The story gives further a wonderful pen-portrait 
of Ladislas L of Hungary, of Jerusalem, and of 
Sicily, and of the barbaric torture of " The Ques- 
tion," which was performed upon the aspiring lover 
of Joanna of Naples. 

Rome figures chiefly in " The Count of Monte 
Cristo," wherein half a dozen chapters are devoted 
to the " Eternal City." Here it is that Monte Cristo 
first meets Albert de Morcerf, son of one of that 
trio of enemies on whom the count has sworn re- 
venge. De Morcerf, enjoying the pleasures of the 
Roman carnival, is captured by bandits, from whom 
he is rescued by the count, who, in saving the son. 



zi^ H)ttmas' parts 

makes the first move of vengeance against the 
father. 

Various interesting parts of Rome are described 
and touched upon, — the Teatro Argentino, the 
Colosseum, the Plaza del Popolo' — scene of the 
public executions of that time, — the catacombs of 
San Sebastian, and many others. The character- 
istic and picturesque manners and customs of the 
Romans, from noblesse to peasants, are set down 
here in vivid and graphic style; and it is clearly 
plain that when Dumas sojourned in Rome he "did 
as the Romans do." 

Dumas' familiarity with Switzerland was no 
greater or no less than his knowledge of Spain, of 
Italy, of Russia, or of Corsica. In his volumes of 
travel, " Impressions du Voyage," are many charm- 
ing bits of narrative which might well be extracted 
and elaborated into what is otherwise known as 
fiction. With regard to " Pauline," this is exactly 
what did happen, or, rather, the relationship between 
the Pauline of the novelette and the Pauline of " La 
Voyage en Suisse " is one based upon a common 
parentage. 

Switzerland early attracted Dumas' attention. 
He took his first tour in the cantons in 1832, partly 
as a means of convalescing from a severe illness, 
and partly because he was in danger of arrest for 



%C3 lPa^6 JEtrangers 371 

the too active part taken by him in the public funeral 
of General Lamarque and the riots that followed. 
No sooner was Dumas en route than the leaves of 
his note-book were torn asunder and despatched 
forthwith to the then newly founded Revue des 
Deux Monde s. 

At Fliielen, that high Alpine pass, the mysterious 
veiled Pauline de Meulien and her cavalier, Alfred 

de N , make their first appearance. One feels 

intuitively that here are the elements of a drama, 
of which the author will avail himself before long. 
The voyages continue, however, and the veiled lady 
fails to reappear until the end of the journey, when 
another transitory glimpse of her is had at Pfeffers. 

This Pauline's adventures evidently demanded 
more space than the travels could afford, and became 
ultimately a novelette. 

" Pauline " is one of Dumas' early attempts at 
fiction, and is told with originality, and a very 
considerable skill. Nearly twenty years after 
" Pauline " was written, Dumas told us that he met 
the counterpart of the villain of the story, Horace 
de Beuzeval, who consigned the beautiful Pauline 
to a living burial in the old abbey vault on the 
coast of Normandy, near Trouville. 

Dumas' pictures of Switzerland are more or less 
conventional; with him the story was the thing, 



372 5)ttmas' ipatis 

and the minutiae of stage setting but a side 
issue. 

In " Les Crimes Celebres," Dumas goes back to 
history, though he sticks to France, with the ex- 
ception of those deahng with the Borgias and Mary- 
Stuart. 

The crimes of the Borgias — and they were many 
— end the series, though they cover but the period 
1492 — 1507. The most unnatural and quite the 
most despicable being the throwing into the Tiber 
by Caesar Borgia the cadaver of his brother. Rome, 
the Popes, and Italy in general form much of the 
venue, but the political history of France, Spain, 
and Austria enter largely intO' the movement of the 
chronicle, and such widely separated towns of 
France as Perpignan, in the Comte de Roussillon in 
the south, and Hesdin, Etaples, and Bethune in the 
north, all play their parts in the political treaties of 
the time. 



THE END. 



appenbix 1F^ 



DUMAS ROMANCES AND HISTORICAL STUDIES CLASSED 
IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER 



B.C. 100 Cesar. 

B.C. 64 Gaule et France. 

A.D. 57 Acte. 

740-1425 Les Hommes de Fer. 

740 Pepin. 

748 Charlemagne. 
1076 Guelfes et Gibslins. 
1099 Praxede. 
1 1 57 Ivanhoe. 
1 162 Le Prince de Voleurs. 
1 162 Robin Hood. 
1248 Dom Martins de Freytas. 
1291-1737 Les Medicis. 
1324-167 2 Italiens et Flamands. 
1324 Ange Gaddi. 
1338 La Comtesse de Salisbury. 
1356 Pierre le Cruel. 
1385 Monseigneur Gaston Phoe- 
bus. 

1388 Le Batard de Mauleon. 

1389 Isabel de Baviere. 
1402 Masaccio. 

14 1 2 Frere Philippe Lippi. 
1414 La Peche aux Filets. 
1425 Le Sire de Giac. 
1429 Jehanne la Pucelle. 
1433 Charles le Temeraire. 
1437 Alexandre Botticelli. 
1437-1587 Les Stuarts. 
1446 Le Perugin. 
1452 Jean Bellin. 
1470 Quintin Metzys. 



1474-1576 Trois Maitres. 
1474-1564 Michel-Ange. 
1477-1576 Titien. 
1483-1520 Raphael. 
1484 Andre de Mantegna. 
i486 Leonard da Vinci. 
1490 Fra Bartolommeo. 
1490 Sogliana. 
1492 Le Pincturiccio. 
1496 Luca de Cranach. 

1503 Baldassare Peruzzi. 

1504 Giorgione. 

1 51 2 Baccio Bandinelli. 
1512 Andre del Sarto. 
1 519 Le Salteador. 
1523 Jacques de Pontormo. 

1530 Jean Holbein. 

1 53 1 Razzi. 

1537 Une Nuit k Florence. 
1540 Jules Romain. 
1540 Ascanio. 
1542 Albert Durer. 
--1531 Les Deux Dianes. 
1553 Henri IV. 

1555 Le Page du Due de Savoie. 
1559 L'Horoscope. 
1572 La Reine Margot. 
1578 La Dame de Monsoreau. 
1585 Les Quarante-Cinq. 
1585 Louis XIII. et Richelieu. 
1619-1825 Les Drames de la 
Mer. 



373 



374 



appendix ir* 



1619 Boutikoe. 
1621 Un Courtesan. 
1625 Les Trois Mousquetaires. 
1637 La Colombe. 
1638-1715 Louis XIV. et Son 
Siecle. 

1639 La Princesse de Monaco. 

1640 Guerard Berck-Heyden. 
1645 Vingt Ans Apres. 
1650 La Guerre des Femmes. 
1660 Le Vicomte de Bragelonne. 
1672 Francois Mieris. 

1672 La Tulipe Noire. 

1683 La Dame de Volupte. 

1697 Me moires d'une Aveugle. 

1697 Les Confessions de la Mar- 
quise. 

1703 Les Deux Reines. 

1 7 10-17 74 Louis XV. et Sa 
Cour. 

17 1 5-1 723 La Regence. 

1718 Le Chevalier d'Harmental. 

17 19 Une Fille du Regent. 
1729 Olympe de Cleves. 
1739 La Maison de Glace. 

17 54-1 789 Louis XVI. et la 

Revolution. 
1762-1833 Mes Memoires. 
1769-1S21 Napoleon. 
1770 Joseph Balsamo. 
1772 Le Capitaine Marion. 
1779 Le Capitaine Paul. 

1784 Le Collier de la Reine. 

1785 Le Docteur Mysterieux. 

1788 Ingenue. 

1789 Ange Pitou. 



17S9 
1790 
1791 
1792 
1793 

1793 
1793 
1793 
1794 
1795 
1798 
1799 
1799 
1800 
1807 
1812 
1815 
1824 
1825 
1831 
1838- 

1838 
1842 
1848 
1849 

1857 
1857 
1857 
1857 
1857 
1858 
i860 
1866 



Le Chateau d'Eppstein. 

La Comtesse de Charny. 

La Route de Varennes. 

Cecile. 

Le Chevalier de Maison- 

Rcuge. 
La Fille du Marquis. 
Blanche de Beaulieu. 
Le Drame de' 93. 
Les Blancs et les Bleus. 
La Junon. 
La San Felice. 
Emma Lyonna. 
Les Compagnons de Jehu. 
Souvenirs d'une Favorite. 
Memoires de Garibaldi. 
Le Capitaine Richard. 
Murat. 

Le Maitre d'Armes. 
Le Kent. 

Les Louves de Machecoul. 
-1858 Les Morts Vont 

Vite. 
Hegesippe Moreau. 
Le Due d'Orleans. 
Chateaubriand. 
La Derniere Annee de 

Marie Dorval. 
Beranger. 
Eugene Sue. 
Alfred de Musset. 
Achille Deveria. 
Lefevre-Deumier. 
La Duchesse d'Orleans. 
Les Garibaldiens. 
La Terreur Prussienne. 



Hppenbix IIIF* 



DUMAS' ROMANCES, SKETCHES, AND " NOUVELLES IN- 
TIMES " CLASSED IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER 



1469 Isaac Laquedem. 


1828 Sultanetta. 


1708 Sylvandire. 


1828 Jacquot sans Oreilles. 


1754 Le Pasteur d'Ashbourn. 


1829 Catherine Blum. 


1774 Le Testament de M. de 


1829 La Princesse Flora. 


Cliauvelin. 


1830 Dieu Dispose. 


1780 Le Meneur de Loups. 


1830 La Boule de Neige. 


1793 La Femme au Collier de 


1831 Le Capitaine Pamphile. 


Velours. 


1831 Les Drames Galants. 


1797 Jacques Ortis. 


1 83 1 Le Fils du For9at. 


1799 Souvenirs d'Antony. 


183 1 Les Mille et un Fantomes. 


1805 Un Cadet de Famille. 


1832 Une Vie d'Artiste. 


1806 Aventures de John Davys. 


1834 Pauline. 


1810 Les Mariages du Pere 


1835 Fernande. 


Olifus. 


1835 Gabriel Lambert. 


18 10 Le Trou de I'Enfer. 


1838 Amaury. 


1812 Jane. 


1841 Les Freres Corses. 


1814 Le Comte de Monte- 


1 84 1 Le Chasseur de Sauvagini 


Cristo. 


1842 Black. 


18 1 5 Conscience I'lnnocent. 


1846 Parisiens et Provinciaux. 


181 7 Le Pere La Ruine. 


1847 L'lle de Feu. 


1824 Georges. 


1856 Madame de Chamblay. 


1827 Les Mohicans de Paris. 


1856 Une Aventure d'Amour. 


1827 Salvator. 





375 



HppenMx null. 



DUMAS TRAVELS CLASSED IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER 



1830 Quinze Jours au Sinai. 
1832 Suisse. 

1834 Le Midi de la France. 

1835 Une Annee a Florence. 
1835 La Vilie Palmieri. 
1835 Le Speronare. (Sicile.) 
1835 Le Capitaine Arena. 

(Sicile.) 
1835 Le Corricolo. (Naples.) 
1838 Excursions sur les Bords 

du Rhin. 



1839 La Vie au Desert. (Afrique 
meridionale.) 

1843 L' Arable Heureuse. 

1846 De Paris k Cadix. 

1846 Le Veloce (Tanger, Alger, 
Tunis.) 

1850 Un Gil Bias en Californie. 

1853 Un Pays Inconnu. (Ha- 
vana, Bresil.) 

1858 En Russie. 

1858 Le Caucase. 

1858 Les Baleiniers. 



376 



Unbei 



Abbaye de Montmartre, 227. 
Abbey of St. Denis, 142, 143. 
Abbey of St. Genevieve, 37, 

136, 187, 253. 
Abelard and Heloise, 82. 
About, Edmond, 42, 188. 
Academic Frangaise, 228. 
Aigues-Mortes, 139, 347. 
Alais, 160. 
Alegres, D^ 224. 
Alengon, 79, 326. 
Algiers, 45. 
Alicante, 159. 
Allee de la Muette, 231. 
Allee des Cygnes, 11. 
Alsace and Lorraine, 11. 
"Ambigu," The, 54. 
Amsterdam, 361. 
" An Englishman in Paris " 

(Vandam), 94, 116. 
"Ange Pitou," see Works of 

Dumas. 
Angers, 332-334- 
Angers, Castle of, 333. 
Angers, David d', 82. 
Angles, Count, 151. 
Anjou, 333. 
Anjou, Due d', 365. 
Anne of Austria, 115, 266, 289, 

312. 
"Anthony," see Works of 

Dumas. 
Antwerp, 365. 



Aramis, 45, 49, 246, 247, 252, 
300, 329. 

Aramitz, Henry d', see Ara- 
mis. 

Arc de Triomphe, 147. 

Arc de Triomphe du Car- 
rousel, 135. 

Arc de Triomphe d'Etoile, 
88, 138, 192. 

Argenteuil, 314. 

Aries, 347, 349- 

Arnault, Lucien, 18, 71. 

Arras, 49, 324. 

Artagnan, 49. 

Artagnan, see D' Artagnan. 

Asnieres, 171. 

Athos, 45, 49, 246-248, 252, 

313- 

Auber, 117. 

"Au Fidele Berger," 205. 

Augennes, Jacques d', 315. 

Augennes, Regnault d', 315. 

"Au Grand Roi Charle- 
magne," 248. 

Aumale, D', 323. 

Auteuil, 87. 

Auvergne, 321. 

Auxerre, 159. 

Avedick, 289. 

Avenel, Georges, 101-103. 

Avenue de la Grande Armee, 
139. 

Avenue de TOpera, 114, 149. 



377 



378 



UnDex 



Avenue de Villiers, 124. 
Avignon, 359. 

Balzac, 69, 82, 127, 363. 

Barbes, 179. 

Barbizon, 71. 

Barras, 74. 

Barrere, 143. 

Bartholdi's "Liberty," 11. 

Bastille, The, 149, 152, I73, 

196, 225, 241, 263, 268, 278, 

284-287, 292, 295, 296. 
Bath, 76. 
Batignolles, 87. 
Batz, Baron de, 50. 
Batz de Castlemore, Charles 

de, see D'Artagnan. 
Baudry, 129, 151. 
Bauville, Theodore de, 51. 
Bavaria, yj. 
Beaucaire, 347-349- 
Beaufort, Duke of, 289. 
Beausire, 254. 
Belgium, 8, 92, 365. 
Bellegarde, 347. 
Belle He, 327-329. 
Belleville, 87. 
Bellune, Due de, 84. 
Beranger, 3, 68, 71. 
Bercy, 87. 

Bernhardt, Sara, 191. 
Berry, Duchesse de, 152. 
Bertuccio, 328. 
Besangon, 92. 
Bethune, 372. 
Beuzeval, Horace de, 371. 
Biard, 224. 
" Bibliotheque Royale," 50, 

131, 135, 253. 
Bicetre, 234. 
Bigelow, John, 125. 
Billot, Father, 18, 23, 24. 
" Black Tulip," see Works of 

Dumas. 
Blackwood's Magazine, 257. 
Blanc, Louis, 75, 179. 



Blanqui, 179. 

Blois, 155, 246, 330-332. 

Blois, Chateau de, 330, 331. 

Bohemia, 95, 96. 

Boieldieu, 82, 153. 

Bois de Boulogne, 89, 150, 

192, 231, 298, 319. 
Bois de Meudon, 303. 
Bois de Vincennes, 89, 147, 

150, 319. 
Boissy, Adrien de, 255, 256. 
Bondy, 315. 

Bordeaux, 151, 154, 159, 342. 
Borgias, The, 372. 
Boulevard des Italiens, 92, 

93, 114, 187, 213, 231. 
Boulevard du Prince Eu- 
gene, 140. 
Boulevard Henri Quatre, 

285. 
Boulevard Magenta, 140, 149. 
Boulevard Malesherbes, 103, 

140, 149. 
Boulevard Raspail, 252. 
Boulevard Sebastopol, 140, 

149. 
Boulevard St. Denis, 135, 147. 
Boulevard St. Germain, 128, 

140, 149, 252. 
Boulevard St. Martin, 135, 

147, 149- 
Boulogne, 160. 
Bourges, 155. 
Bourg, L'Abbe, 130. 
Bourgogne, 105. 
Bourse, The, 89, 91. 
Brabant, Due de, 365. 
Brentano, 360. 
Brest, 90, 91, 160. 
Breteuil, De, 296. 
Bridges : 

Cahors, 172. 

Lyons, 172. 

Orthos, 172. 

St. Benezet d'Avignon, 172. 

See under Pont also. 



1Int)ex 



379 



.Brillat-Savarin, 102, 103. 
Brinvilliers, Marquise de, 

286, 287. 
Brionze, 79. 
Brittany, 327, 328. 
Broggi, Paolo, 118. 
Brown, Sir Thomas, 142. 
Brozier, 31. 
Brussels, 44, ^6. 
" Bruyere aux Loups," 23. 
Buckingham, 322. 
Buckle, 96. 
Bureau d'Orleans, 8, 31, 58, 

84, 187. 
Burns, 43. 
Bussy, 333. 

Buttes Chaumont, 190, 314, 
Byron, 43. 

"Cachot de Marie Antoi- 
nette," 238. 

Caderousse, 347, 349. 

Caen, 326. 

Cafe de Paris, iii, 187, 
189. 

Cafe des Anglais, 118. 

Cafe du Roi, 18. 

Cafe Riche, 118. 

Cagliostro, 295, 296. 

Cahors, 351. 

Cahors, Bridge of, 172. 

Calais, 159, 160, 321-324, 327. 

Calcutta, y6. 

Calixtus II., 198. 

Cambaceres, Delphine, 82. 

Canebiere, The, 342. 

Cantal, 321. 

Capetians, The, 194. 

" Capitaine Pamphile," see 
Works of Dumas. 

"Capitaine Paul" (Paul 
Jones), see Works of Du- 
mas. 

Carcassonne, 139. 

Carlyle, 69. 

Carmelite Friary, 246, 252, 



" Caserne Napoleon," 140. 
Caspian Sea, The, 44. 
Castle of Angers, 333. 
Castle of Pierrefonds, 324. 
Cathedral de Notre Dame 

(Chartres), 329. 
Cathedral of Notre Dame de 

Rouen, 187. 
" Catriona " ( Stephenson) , 

361. 
Caucasus, 8. 
" Ciauseries," see Works of 

Dumas. 
Caussidiere, Marc, 178, 179. 
Cavaignac, General, 179. 
Ceinture Railway, 89, 303. 
Cenci, The, 285. 
Chaffault, De, 46. 
Chalet de Monte Cristo, see 

Residences of Dumas. 
Chalons, 359. 
Chambord, 332. 
Chambre des Deputes, 8, 138, 

167, 187. 
Champs Elysees, 95, 136, 150. 
Changarnier, General 181. 
Chanlecy, Charlotte Anne 

de, 50. 
Chantilly, 297, 298. 
Charenton, 87. 
Charlemagne, 129, 193. 
Charles I., 267. 
Charles VI., 315, 325. 
Charles VII., 131. 
Charles VIII., 132. 
Charles IX., 133, 212, 217, 

236, 253, 263, 311, 320, 333. 
Charles X., 156, 270. 
Charles-le-Temeraire, 215. 
Charpillon, M., 8. 
Chartres, 329, 330. 
Chartres, Cathedral de Notre 

Dame, 329. 
Chartres, Due de (Philippe 

d'Orleans), 267. 
Chateaubriand, 68, 147. 



38o 



fnbex 



Chateau de Blois, 330, 331. 
Chateau d'lf, 45, 339, 340, 

343, 347. 
Chateau de Rambouillet, 315. 
Chateau de Rocca Petrella, 

285. 
Chateau de Vincennes, 319, 

320. 
Chateau of Madrid, 298, 

319. 
Chateau Neuf, 303, 312, 313. 
Chateaurien, Rene de, 319. 
Chatelet du Monte Cristo, 

303. 
Chatillon-sur-Seine, 169. 
Chenier, Andre, 68, 71. 
Cherbourg, 160. 
" Cherubino et Celestine," 

see Works of Dumas. 
" Cheval de Bronze," 172. 
"Chevalier d'Harmental," 

see Works of Dumas. 
*' Chicot the Jester " (La 

Dame de Monsoreau"), see 

Works of Dumas. 
Childebert, 129, 212. 
Childerie, 129. 
Chopin, 82. 

Christine of Sweden, 123. 
Churches, see under £glise. 
Cimetiere des Innocents, 197, 

221. 
Cimetiere Pere la Chaise, see 

Pere la Chaise. 
Cinq-Mars, 224. 
Civil War, The, 50. 
Claremont, 180. 
Clement-Thomas, Gen., 227. 
Clovis, 129. 
" Clymnestre," 19. 
"Coches d'Eau," 156. 
Coconnas, 173. 
Coligny, 260. 
Coligny, His, 224. 
College des Quatre Nations, 

135, 173. 



"Colomba," 368. 
Colonne de Juillet, 88. 
Comedie Frangaise, 190. 
" Commission des Monti-' 

ments Historiques" 278. 
" Commission du Vieux 

Paris," 193. 
Commune, The, 185, 192, 196, 

227, 263, 264. 
" Compagnie Generale des 

Omnibus," 153. 
Compiegne, 24, 46, 246, 286, 

297, 298, 317-319. 
" Comtesse de Charny," see 

Works of Dumas. 
Conciergerie, 92, 236, 238, 

240, 241, 263, 286. 
Conde, 224, 320. 
Conflans-Charenton, 171. 
Contades, Count G. de, 79. 
Conti, Prince de, 90. 
Corneille, 224. 
Corot, 72, 73, 191. 
Corsica, 8, 337, 351, 367. 
" Corsican Brothers," see 

Works of Dumas. 
Cosne, 155. 

Couloir St. Hyacinthe, 228. 
Courbevoie, 314. 
Cour du Justice, 241. 
"Count of Monte Cristo," 

see Works of Dumas. 
Cours la Reine, 133. 
Crepy-en-Valois, 15, 16, 24, 

46, 83, 315, 317, 318, 321. 
"Crimes Celebres " ("Cele- 
brated Crimes"), see 

Works of Dumas. 
Cul-de-sac des Marchands 

des Chevaux, 286. 
" Cyrano de Bergerac," 43. 

Dammartin, 16, 24, 317. 
Damploux, 24. 

Danglars, Baron, 109, 231, 
261. 



fnbex 



381 



Dantes, 229, 231, 328, 344, 

346, 347, 355. 
Darnley, 324. 
Daubonne, 214. 
Daudet, 3, 349- 
David, 82. 

" David Copperfield," 34. 
D'Alegres, The, 224. 
D'Angers, David, 82. 
D'Anjou, Due, 365. 
D'Aramitz, Henry, see Ara- 

mis. 
D'Artagnan, 45, 48-50, 56, 

127, 200, 201, 206, 214, 223, 

225, 245-247, 252, 267, 313, 

328, 329. 
D'Artagnan Romances, 148, 

171, 195, 205, 215, 225, 235, 

247, 254, 266, 312, 330, 331. 
D'Augennes, Jacques, 315. 
D'Augennes, Regnault, 315. 
D'Aumale, 323. 
De Batz, Baron, 50. 
De Batz de Castlemore, 

Charles, see D'Artagnan. 
De Bauville, Theodore, 51. 
De Bellune, Due, 84. 
De Berry, Duchesse, 152. 
De Beuzeval, Horace, 371. 
De Boissy, Adrien, 255, 256. 
De Brabant, Due, 365. 
De Breteuil, 296. 
De Brinvilliers, Marquise, 

286, 287. 
De Chaffault, 46. 
De Chanleey, Charlotte Anne, 

50. 
De Chartres, Due (Philippe 

d'Orleans), 267. 
De Chateaurien, Rene, 319. 
De Contades, Count G., 79. 
De Conti, Prince, 90. 
D'Enghien, Due, 320. 
D'Estrees, Gabrielle, 228, 260. 
De Flesselles, 196. 
De France, Henriette, 2(fj. 



De Franchi, 213, 232, 255, 

De Franchi, Louis, 319. 
De Genlis, Madame, 2>^Z' 
De Guise, Cardinal, 323. 
De Guise, Due, 224, 253, 278, 

301, Z'^Z- 
De Guise, Duchesse, 122, 323. 
De Jallais, Amedee, 232. 
De Joyeuse, Admiral, 365. 
De la Mole, 212. 
De la Motte, Madame, 228, 

241, 307. 
De Launay, 284. 
De Leuven, Adolphe, 14, 16, 

18. 
De Lesdequieres, Duchesse, 

293- 
De Longueville, Madame, 

224. 
De Marsillac, Prince, 90. 
De Mauge, Marquis, 214. 
De Maupassant, Guy, 228. 
De Medici, Marie, 133, 224, 

260. 
De Medici, Catherine, 208, 

212, 264. 
De Merle, 18. 
De Meulien, Pauline, 371. 
De Montford, Comtes, 315. 
De Montmorenci, Due, 255. 
De Montpensier, Due, 45. 
De Morcerf, Albert, 369. 
De Morcerf, Madame, 358. 
De Musset, Alfred, 68, 82, 95, 

123. 
De Nemours, M., 323. 
De Nerval, Gerard, 123. 
De Nevers, Duchesse, 197. 
D'Orleans, Louis, 324. 
De Poissy, Gerard, 130. 
De Poitiers, Diane, 260. 
De Portu, Jean, se^; Porthos. 
De Retz, Cardinal, 320. 
De Richelieu, see Richelieu. 
De Rohan, zi^ 224. 



382 



fnbex 



De Sevigne, Madame, 102, 

223. 
De Sillegue, Colonel, 49. 
De Sillegue d'Athos, Ar- 

mand, see Athos. 
De Sorbonne, Robert, 244. 
De Ste. Croix, Gaudin, 286. 
De Talleyrand, Henri, 214. 
De Treville, 49, 246, 251. 
De Valois, see under Valois. 
De Vigny, 68. 
De Villefort, 261, 340. 
De Villemessant, 52. 
De Volterre, Ricciarelli, 224. 
De Wardes, Z'2-2.. 
De Windt, Cornelius, 361. 
De Windt, Jacobus, 361. 
De Winter, Lady, 223. 
Debret, 117. 
Decamps, 191. 
Delacroix, yz, 82, 97, 191. 
Delavigne, 18, 82. 
Delrien, 18. 

Demidoff, Prince, 189. 
"Diernier Jour d'un Con- 

damne," 239. 
Desaugiers, 31. 
D'esbordes -Valmore, Ma- 
dame, 70. 
Descamps, Gabriel, 221. 
Desmoulins, Camille, 268. 
Dibdin, 150, 
Dickens, Charles, 34. 
" Dictionnaire de Cuisine," 

see Works of Dumas. 
Dieppe, 8, 6^. 
"Director of Evacuations at 

Naples," 45, 57. 
"Dix-huit Mois a St. Pe- 

tersburgh," see Works of 

Dumas. 
Don Quixote, 245. 
Dore, Gastave, 123, 140, 149. 
Douai, 49, 
Dover, 154, 322. 
Drapeau Blanc, 31. 



Ducercen, 313. 
Ducis, 121. 

Dujarrier-Beauvallon, 75-77. 
Dumas : 
Monuments to, see under 

Monuments. 
Residences of, see under 

Residences. 
Title of, see under Title. 
Travels of, see under 

Travels. 
Works of, see under 
Works. 
Dumas, General, Marquis de 

la Pailleterie, 26, 27, 47. 
Dumas, fds, 64, 66, 67, 75, 78, 

79, 81, 121, 124. 
Duprez, 117, 

£cole des Beaux Arts, 244. 
£cole de Droit, 136, 183, 244. 
ficole de Medicine, 244. 
"ficole des Viellards," 18. 
ficole Militaire, 136. 
Edict of Nantes, 334. 
figlise de la Madeleine, 88, 

138, 149, 153. 
figlise de Notre Dame, 86, 

129, 167, 198, 235, 263, 286. 
figlise de St. Gervais, 132. 
figlise de St. Merry, 132. 
Eglise de St. Paul et St. 

Louis, 133. 
figlise St. Etienne du Mont, 

167, 253, 254. 
figlise St. Eustache, 192. 
£glise St. Germain I'Auxer- 

rois, 132, 212, 260. 
figlise St. Innocents, 142, 

144, 223. 
£glise St. Jacques, 198. 
figlise St. Roch, 134. 
figlise St. Severin, 167. 
figlise St, Sulpice, 167. 
"Eighteen Months at St. 

Petersburg," 2>^y. 



fnbex 



3^3 



Elba, 25, 219, 337. 
ElizabeLh, 365. 
Elysee, The, 25, 103. 
Enghien, Due d', 320. 
England, 8, 50. 
Epinac, 160. 
Ermenonville, 24. 
Esplanade des Invalides, 150. 
Estaminet du Divan, 118. 
Estrees, Gabrielle d', 228, 

260. 
Etaples, 372. 

"Fabrique des Romans," 38. 
Falaise, 326. 

Faubourg St. Denis, 220, 
Faubourg St. Germain, 83, 

132. 
Faubourg St. Honore, 83. 
Fernand, 261. 
Ferry, Gabriel, 233. 
Feval, Paul, 363. 
Figaro, The, 52. 
Flanders, 321. 
Flaubert, Gustave, yy, 
Flesselles, De, 196. 
Fleury, General, y6. 
Florence, 115. 
Fontainebleau, 155, 297, 298, 

300, 302, 303, 315. 
Fontaine des Innocents, 145, 

187, 193, 222. 
Foret de Compiegne, 318, 

319. 
Foret de I'Aigue, 286. 
Forgues, 363. 
Fort de Vincennes, 320. 
Fort Lamalge, 350. 
" Forty - Five Guardsmen," 

see Works of Dumas. 
Fosses de la Bastille, 137. 
Fouque, 360. 
Fouquet, 199, 289, 298, 300, 

320. 
Foy, General, 31, 82, 84. 
France, Henriette de, 267. 



Franchi, De, 213, 232, 255, 

Franchi, Louis de, 319. 

Francis, 18. 

Frangois I., 131-134, I44, 197, 

198, 260, 313. 
Franco-Prussian War, 57, 

164, 192. 
Fronde, 89. 



"Gabriel Lambert," see 

Works of Dumas. 
Gaillardet, 238. 
Gare de I'Est, 162. 
Gare du Nord, 162. 
Gare St. Lazare, 161. 
Garibaldi, 2)7- 
Garnier, 190. 
Gascony, 50. 
Gaston of Orleans, 331. 
Gautier, 68, 71, 72, 123. 
Gay, Mme. Delphine, 70. 
Genlis, Madame de, 363. 
" Georges," see Works of 

Dumas. 
Germany, 8, 360. 
Girondins, The, 194. 
Glinel, Charles, 26. 
Godot, 151. 
Goethe, 68, 360. 
" Golden Lion," 316. 
Gondeville, 24. 
Gouffe, Armand, 31. 
Goujon, Jean, 132, 223, 260. 
Granger, Marie, 327. 
Grenelle, 95. 
Grisier, 75, :i,67. 
" Guido et Genevra " (Ha- 

levy), 54. 
Guilbert, 205. 
Guise, Cardinal de, 323. 
Guise, Due de, 224, 253, 278, 

301, 2>2Z. 
Guise, Duchesse de, 122, 323. 
Guizot, 69. 



3^4 



1[nt)ex 



Halevy, 54, 70, 117. 
Hamerton, Philip Gilbert, 

168. 
Hamilton, 324. 
"Hamlet," 121. 
Haramont, 23. 
Hautes-Pyrenees, 49. 
Havre, 150, 160, 169, 179, 

180, 326. 
Henri I., 323. 
Henri H., 132, 172, 303, 312, 

323- 
Henri HI, 122, 133, 172, 323, 

333. 
Henri IV., 133, I34, I43, 217, 

224, 235, 236, 260, 303, 312, 

320, 323, 351, 354- 
Henri V., 181. 
"Henri HI. et Sa Cour," 

see Works of Dumas. 
" Hernani," 122. 
Herold, 82. 
Hesdin, 372. 
" Histoire de Jules Cesar " 

(Napoleon HI.), 73. 
" Histoire des Prisons de 

Paris," 238. 
" History of Civilization " 

(Buckle), 96. 
Hoffman, 360. 
Honfleur, 169, 179. 
Hopital des Petites Maisons, 

132. 
Hopital du St. Jacques du 

Haut Pas, 133. 
Hotel Boulainvilliers, 228. 
Hotel Chevreuse, 127, 128, 

252. 
Hotel D'Artagnan, 214. 
Hotel de Bourgogne, 133, 

215. 
Hotel de Choiseul, 115, 
Hotel de Cluny, 167. 
Hotel de Coligny, 278. 
Hotel de Due de Guise, 

278. 



Hotel de France, 248. 

Hotel des Invalides, 135, 149, 

167. 
"Hotel de la Belle Etoile," 

208, 212. 
Hotel de la Monnaie, 136, 

248. 
Hotel de Louvre, 102. 
Hotel de Mercoeur, 266. 
Hotel des Montmorencies, 

278. 
Hotel des Mousquetaires, 

207, 210. 
Hotel des Postes, 154. 
Hotel de Soissons, 133. 
Hotel de Venise, 234. 
Hotel de Ville, 132, 137, 191, 

196, 197, 204, 318. 
Hotel du Vieux-Augustins, 

16. 
Hotel la Tremouille, 251. 
Hotel Longueville, 89. 
" Hotel Picardie," 214. 
Hotel Rambouillet, 266. 
Hotel Richelieu, 266. 
Hugo, Victor, 3, 37, 68, 71, 

73, 79, 82, 122, 127, 155, 

156, 158, 223, 239, 363. 
Hugo, Pere, 82. 
Huntley, 324. 
Hyeres, 351. 

He de la Cite, 86, 131, 133, 
165, 169, 172, 235. 

He St. Louis, 165, 169. 

" Impressions du Voyage," 
see Works of Dumas. 

"Inn of the Beautiful Pea- 
cock," 300. 

Irving, Washington, 41. 

Island of Monte Cristo, 338. 

Isle of France (Mauritius), 

46. 
Italy, 8, 44. 
Ivry, 88. 



•ffuDex 



38s 



Jacquot, SI. 

Jallais, Amedee de, 233. 

James II., 303. 

Janin, Jules, 363. 

Jardin des Plantes, 134, 149. 

" Jeanne d'Arc," see Works 

of Dumas. 
Jean-sans-Peur, 215. 
Jerome, Prince, 271, 
Jerusalem, 369. 
Jesuit College, 132. 
"Jeune Malade," 205. 
Joanna of Naples, 369. 
Joigny, 46, 58. 
Jourdain, Marshal, 84. 
Jouy, 18. 

Joyeuse, Admiral de, 365. 
"Jugurtha," 45. 
Jussac, 252. 

Karr, Alphonse, 363. 
" Kean," see Works of Du- 
mas. 
Kipling, 41. 
Kotzebue, 285. 

L'Abbe Metel de Bois-Ro- 

bert, 228. 
La Beauce, 166. 
La Brie, 166. 
Lachambeaudie, 82. 
Lacenaire, 240. 
La Chapelle, 87. 
La Chatre, 70. 
" La Chevrette," 214. 
La Cite, 129, 130, 166, 167, 

235, 247. 
" La Compagne Lafitte et 

Caillard," 157. 
Lacroix, Paul, 362. 
"La Dame aux Camelias," 

79. 
La Dame aux Camelias, see 

Plessis, Alphonsine, 78. 
" La Dame de Monsoreau " 

("Chicot the Jester"), see 

Works of Dumas. 



Ladislas I. of Hungary, 369. 
"La Feuille" (Arnault), 7i- 
La France, 163. 
Lamartine, 68, 71, 179. 
Lambert, Gabriel, 326, 327. 
Langeais, 332. 
" La Pastissier Frangaise," 

104. 
"La Pate d'ltalie," 93. 
La Presse, 75. 
La Revue, 54, 64. 
La Rochelle, 49. 
La Roquette, 263, 278. 
Lassagne, 31. 
Latin Quarter, see Quartier 

Latin. 
"La Tour de Nesle," see 

Works of Dumas. 
Launay, De, 284. 
La Ville, 130, 166, 167. 
La Villette, 24, 87, 137. 
Lebrun, Madame, 179. 
" Le Chatelet," 204. 
Leclerc, Captain, 229. 
"Le Collier de la Reine" 

(The Queen's Necklace), 

see Works of Dumas. 
Lecomte, General, 227. 
Le Gaulois, 163. 
Legislative Assembly, 183. 
Le Livre, 79. 
Lemarquier, 239. 
Lemercier, 19. 
Le Mousquetaire, 44, 
"Le Nord" Railway, 160. 
Le Peuple, 98. 
Lescot, Pierre, 222, 260. 
Lesdequieres, Duchesse de, 

293- 
" Les Frangaises," 157. 
Les Grandes Eaux, 303. 
Les Halles, 206, 222, 263. 
" Les Pecheurs du Filet," see 

Works of Dumas, 368. 
"L'Est" Railway, 160. 
Les Ternes, 87. 



386 



Ifnbex 



" Les Trois Mousquetaires," 

see Works of Dumas. 
"Le Stryge," 198. 
Leuven, Adolphe de, 14, 16, 

18. 
L'Homme-Lihre, 75. 
Lille, 49, 160. 
''L'Image de Notre Dame," 

199, 201. 
Limerick, yG. 
L'Institut, 167. 
Lisbon, yy. 
Lisieux, 326. 
Loire, The, 155, 160, 168, 329- 

331- 
London, y6, 105, 150, i54, 

179, 189, 321. 
London Tower, 185. 
Longe, 79. 
Longueville, Madame de, 

224. 
" L'Orleans " Railway, 160, 

161, 192. 
"L'Ouest" Railway, 160. 
Louis I., yy. 
Louis IV., 220. 
Louis VIL, 130, 173. 
Louis VIIL, 144. 
Louis XL, 12, 131. 
Louis XIL, 131, 134- 
Louis XIIL, 133, 214, 224, 

266. 
Louis XIV., 50, 104, IIS. 134, 

135, 143. 224, 260, 267, 288, 
289, 303, 304, 312, 328, 330, 
331- 

Louis XV., 135, 166, 318. 
Louis XVI., 196, 264, 315. 
Louis XVIII., 143, 154. 262. 
Louis-Philippe, 31, 38, 58, 69, 

72, 86, 88, 104, 116, 153, 

180, 193, 268, 270. 
Louvre, The, 89, 132, 13S, 

136, 167, 173, 175, 184, 187, 
195, 208, 212, 215, 221, 241, 
255, 258-264, 315. 



Loyola, Ignatius, 227. 

Lulli, 115. 

L'Universite, 127, 130, 166, 

167, 244, 248. 
Lutece, 86. 
Luxembourg, The, 133, 167, 

187, 191, 245-247, 251, 253- 

255- ^ , 

Luxembourg, Gardens of the, 

70, ISO, 253. 
Lycee Henri Quatre, 253. 
Lyons, 157, 159, 172, 301, 342, 

359. 

Mackeat (Maquet), Augus- 
tus, 39-42. 

Madeleine, The (Church), 
88, 138, 149, 153- 

Madelonnettes, The, 134. 

Madrid, 159. 

Madrid, Chateau of, 298, 319. 

Maestricht, 50. 

Magazin St. Thomas, 147. 

" Mais on Dumas et Cie" 40, 

51- . „ 

" Maitre Adam le Calabrais, 

see Works of Dumas. 
Malmesbury, Lord, 76. 
Mandrin, Pierre, 91. 
" Man in the Iron Mask, 

The," 288, 289. 
Mantes, 165, 169. 
Marat, Jean Paul, 229. 
Marcel, Etienne, 130, 193. 
Margot, 236. 
" Marguerite de Valois," see 

Works of Dumas. 
Marie Antoinette, 50, 236, 

238. 
Mame, 165. 
Marrast, Armand, 179. 
Mars, Mile., 123. 
Marseilles, 155, 219, 229, 261, 

339-342, 349, 351, 358. 
Marsillac, Prince de, 90. 
Mattioli, 290. 



IfnDex 



387 



Mauge, Marquise de, 214. 
Maupassant, Guy de, 228. 
Mauritius (Isle of France), 

46. 
Mazarin, 2>7^ US* 211, 267, 

273, 275. 
" Mechanism of Modern 

Life," loi. 
Medici, Marie de, 133, 224, 

260. 
Medici, Catherine de, 208, 

212, 264. 
"Meditations" (Lamartine), 

68. 
Mediterranean, The, 45, 327, 

Z2,^, 340. 
" Memoires," see Works of 

Dumas, 
" Memoires de M. d'Arta- 

gnan," 49. 
" Memoires d'un Maitre 

d'Armes," see Works of 

Dumas. 
Menilmontant, 87. 
Mennesson, 14. 
Merimee, 69, 159, 368. 
Merle, De, 18. 
Merovee, 129, 
Meryon, 126-128, 198. 
" Mes Betes," see Works of 

Dumas. 
" Messageries a Cheval," 157. 
" Messageries Royale," 157. 
" Metropolitain," 204. 
Metz, 157. 
Meulan, 165. 

Meulien, Pauline de, 371. 
Meyerbeer, 117. 
Michelangelo, 224. 
Michelet, 69, 82, 98-100. 
Mignet, 69. 
Millet, 71. 

Minister of the Interior, 183. 
Mirabeau, 320. 
Mohammed Ali, 88. 
Mole, De la, 212. 



Moliere, 224. 

Molle, Mathieu, 211. 

Monastere des Feuillants, 

133. 
Monet, 187. 

Monmouth, Duke of, 289. 
Monselet, Charles, 163. 
Monstrelet, 215. 
Montargis, 155. 
" Monte Cristo," see Works 

of Dumas. 
Monte Cristo, Island of, 45, 

338. 
Montez, Lola, ^6, 78. 
Montford, Comtes de, 315. 
Montmartre, 87, 142, 146, 

188, 190, 227, 314. 
Montmartre, Abbaye of, 227. 
Montmorenci, Due de, 255, 
Montpensier, Due de, 45. 
Mont Valerien, 88. 
Monuments to Dumas, 140, 

149. 
Morcerf, Mme. de, 358. 
Morcerf, Albert de, 369. 
Morrel, House of, 349. 
Motte, Mme. de la, 228, 241, 

307. 
Moulin Rouge, 227. 
Moulin de la Galette, 227, 
Mount of Martyrs, 227. 
Miiller, 241. 
Munier, Georges, 46. 
Murat, 351. 
" Murat," see Works of 

Dumas. 
Miirger, Henri, 96. 
Musee, Cluny, 5. 
Musset, Alfred de, 68, 82, 

95, 123. 
" Mysteries of Paris," 99. 

Nadaud, Gustave, 96. 
Nancy, 157, 160. 
Nantes, 151, 334-336. 
Nantes, Edict of, 334. 



388 



Hn^cx 



Nanteuil, 24. 

Naples, 8, 368. 

Napoleon I., i, 25, 74, 88, 
116, 137, 138, 192, 193, 218, 
219, 244, 260, 265, 270, 313, 

325, 367. 
Napoleon III., 54, 73, 74, 
89, 102, 144, 180, 181, 183- 
185, 260, 26s, 271, 315, 

325- 
Napoleon, Jerome, 45. 
Nemours, De, 323. 
Nerval, Gerard de, 123. 
Netherlands, The, 365. 
Nevers, Duchesse de, 197. 
New York, 11, 105. 
Nodier, Charles, 69, 82, 104, 

156. 
Nogaret, 238. 
Nogent, 88. 
Noirtier, M., 229. 
Normandy, 326, 327. 
Notre Dame, see under 

figlise. 
Notre Dame de la Garde 

(Marseilles), 342. 

Obelisk, The, 88. 
Observatoire, The, 135, 244. 
Odeon, The, 123, 167, 187. 
"Odes et Ballades" (Hugo), 

68. 
"CEdipus," 122. 
"Old Mortality," 121. 
Oliva, 255. 
Oloron, 49. 
Omnibus, Companies : 
" Compagnie Generale des 

Omnibus," 153. 
" La Compagne Lafitte et 

Caillard," 157. 
"Les Frangaises," 157, 
" Messageries Royales," 

157. 
" Messageries a Cheval," 
157. 



" Opera," The, 89, 91, 95, 

114, 115, 118, 190. 
Opera Comique, 190. 
Oratoire, The, 134. 
Orleans, 155, 160, 237, 330. 
Orleans, House of, 181, 324. 
Orthez, 49. 
Orthon, 208. 
Orthos, 172. 

Orthos, Bridge of, 172. 
" Otho the Archer," 360. 
Ourcq (river), 137. 

Pailleterie, Marquis de la, 

see Dumas, General. 
Palais Bourbon, 187. 
Palais Cardinal, 134, 266. 
Palais de Justice, 236, 239, 

241. 
Palais de la Bourse, 137. 
Palais de ITndustrie, 141. 
Palais de la Revolution, 270. 
Palais des Arts, 173. 
Palais des Beaux Arts, 138, 

143, 238. 
Palais des Tournelles, 133. 
Palais National, 183. 
Palais Royale, 16, 31, 95, 115, 

134, 167, 183, 187, 224, 228, 

246, 247, 266-273, 275. 
Panorama Colbert, 148. 
Panorama Delorme, 148. 
Panorama de I'Opera, 148. 
Panorama du Saumon, 148. 
Panorama Jouffroy, 148. 
Panorama Vivienne, 148. 
Pantheon, The, 37, 136, 167, 

187, 252, 253. 
Paraclet, 81. 
Pare Monceau, 228. 
"Paris -Lyon et Mediter- 

ranee" (P. L. M.) Ry., 

160, 161, 192. 
" Pascal Bruno," see Works 

of Dumas. 
Passerelle, Constantine, 170. 



fnbex 



389 



Passerelle de TEstacade, 170. 

Passerelle St. Louis, 170. 

Passy, 87, 150. 

Pau, 354. 

"Pauline," see Wiorks of 

Dumas. 
" Paul Jones " (" Capitaine 

Paul"), see Works of 

Dumas. 
Pennell, Joseph, 168. 
Pere la Chaise, 81, 142, 146, 

188, 239, 340. 
Perpignan, 372. 
Petit Pont, 170. 
Petits Augustins, 143. 
Pfeffers, 371. 
Philippe-Auguste, 130, 134, 

144, 260. 
Phoebus, Gaston, 354. 
Pierrefonds, 246, 317. 
Pierrefonds, Castle of, 324. 
Picardie, 321. 
"Pilon d'Or," 205. 
Pitou, Louis Ange, 18, 23, 24, 

317- 
Place D'auphine, 133, 235. 
Place de Bourgogne, 182. 
Place de la Bastille, 148, 167, 

187, 225, 296. 
Place de la Concorde, 136, 

138, 148, 162, 193, 263. 
Place de la Croix-Rouge, 252. 
Place de la Greve, 166, 197- 

199, 201, 234, 239, 287. 
Place de I'Hotel de Ville, 

148, 197. 
Place de la Madeleine, 194, 
Place de la Nation, 147. 
Place de la Revolution, 263. 
Place de St. Sulpice, 148, 

252. 
Place des Victoires, 148. 
Place des Vosges, 148, 223, 

225. 
Place du Carrousel, 89, 138, 

148, 221. 



Place du Chatelet, 148, 205, 

286. 
Place du Palais Bourbon, 

148. 
Place du Palais Royal, 148. 
Place du Pantheon, 148. 
Place Malesherbes, 123, 124, 

140, 149. 
Place Maubert, 286. 
Place Royale, 133, 134, 148, 

223-225. 
Place St. Antoine, 225. 
Place Vendome, 137, 148. 
Plaine de St. Denis, 95. 
Plessis, Alphonsine, (La 

Dame aux Camelias), 78. 
Poe, E. A., 41, 43. 
Poissy, Gerard de, 130. 
Poitiers, Diane de, 260. 
Pompeii, 5, 45, 57. 
Pont Alexandre, 173. 
Pont au Change, 135, 170, 

171, 173- 
Pont Audemer, 326. 
Pont aux Doubles, 170. 
Pont de I'Archeveche, 170. 
Pont d'Arcole, 170. 
Pont d'Austerlitz, 170. 
Pont de Bercy, 170. 
Pont de la Cite, 170. 
Pont des Arts, 170, 172. 
Pont de Sevres, 302. 
Pont des Invalides, 88. 
Pont du Carrousel, 88, 171, 

235. 
Pont du Garde, 347. 
Pont du Pecq, 311, 314. 
Pont I'Eveque, 327. 
Pont, le Petit, 168. 
Pont Louis XV., 173. 
Pont Louis-Philippe, 88, 170. 
Pont Maril, 170. 
Pont Napoleon, 170. 
Pont Neuf, 133, 134, 170, 171, 

173. 
Pont Notre Dame, 170. 



390 



IFnbex 



Pont Royal, 135, 157. 
Pont St. Michel, 170. 
Pont Tournelle, 170. 
Porette, Marguerite, 239. 
Porte du Canal de I'Ourcq, 

139. 
Porte du Temple, 131. 
Porte Marly, 314. 
Porte St. Antoine, 221. 
Porte St. Denis, 131, 220, 

221. 
Porte St. Honore, 131. 
Porte St. Martin, 104, 113, 

115, 153. 
Porthos, 45, 49, 246, 247, 252, 

324- 
Portu, Jean de, see Porthos. 
Prison du Grand Chatelet, 

204. 
Proudhon, M., 178. 
Provence, 347, 351. 
Puits, 80. 
Puys, 8, 66. 

Quai de Conti, 133, 170, 248. 
Qua de la Greve, 166, 197, 

199, 206. 
Quai de la Megisserie, 133. 
Quai de la Monnai, 172. 
Quai de I'Arsenal, 133. 
Quai de I'ficole, 133, 173. 
Quai de I'Horloge, 133, 236. 
Quai de I'Hotel de Ville, 197, 

206. 
Quai des Augustins, 133. 
Quai des Ormes, 197. 
Quai des Orphelins, 133. 
Quai d'Orleans, 343. 
Quai d'Orsay, 138, 170. 
Quai du Louvre, 170, 172. 
Quai Voltaire, 170. 
Quartier des Infants-Rouges, 

228.^ 
Quartier du Marais, 133. 
Quartier Latin, 96, 185, 244. 
" Quentin Durward," 13. 



Rachel, 191. 
Railways : 

" Ceinture," 89, 303. 

"L'Est," 160. 

"Le Nord," 160. 

" L'Orleans," 160, 161, 192. 

"L'Ouest," 160, 303. 

"P. L. M." (Paris-Lyon 
et Mediterranee), 160, 
161, 192. 
Rambouillet, 297, 298, 315, 

316. 
Ranke, 259. 
Raspail, 179. 
Ravaillac, 224. 
Reade, Charles, 81. 
"Regulus," 18. 
Reims, 129, 156. 
Rempart des Fosses, 130. 
Renaissance, 132. 
Residences of Dumas, 44, 

93, 103, 112, 124, 147, 148, 

150, 188, 220, 303. 
Restaurant du Pavilion 

Henri Quatre, 160. 
"Restoration," The, 87, 138, 

154, 155- 
Retz, Cardinal de, 520. 
Revolutions, The, 4, 44, 136, 

138, 140, 154, 164, 172, 

178-180, 193, 196, 224, 227, 

325. 
Revue des Deux Mondes, 

371. 
Rhine, The, 8. 
Rhone, 347, 349- 
Richelieu, 37, 224, 225, 228, 

244, 252, 266, 289. 
Richelieu, Marechal, 109. 
Rizzio, 324. 
Roanne, 160. 
"Robert le Diable," 116. 
Robespierre, 324. 
Robsart, Amy, 121. 
Roche-Bernard, 329. 
Rochefort, 18. 



fnbex 



391 



Rohan, De, 2>7, 224. 

"Roi d'Yvetot" (Beranger), 

71- 
Roland, Madame, 235. 
Rolle, 363. 
Rollin, Ledru, 179. 
Rossini, 82. 
Rostand, 43. 

Rouen, 'j'j, 159, 160, 169, 327. 
Rougemont, 31. 
Rousseau, 7. 
"Royal Tiger," 316. 
Rubens, 191. 
Rue Beaubourg (Le Beau- 

Bourg), 130. 
Rue Beaujolais, 228. 
Rue Bourtebourg (Le Bourg 

Thibourg), 130. 
Rue Cassette, 246. 
Rue Castiglione, 137, 147. 
Rue Chariot, 228. 
Rue Coq-Heron, 229-231. 
Rue d'Amsterdam, 188. 
Rue Dauphine, 133. 
Rue de Bac, 72, 147. 
Rue de Bethusy, 278. 
Rue de Bons Enfants, 272. 
Rue de Douai, 187. 
Rue de Faubourg St. Denis, 

220, 221. 
Rue de Crenelle, 147. 
Rue de I'Arbre-Sec, 206, 

211. 
Rue de la Chaussee d'Antin, 

147, 231. 
Rue de la Concorde, 183. 
Rue de la Harpe, 246. 
Rue de Lancry, 152. 
Rue de la Martellerie, 215. 
Rue de Lille, 255. 
Rue de la Paix, 137, 147. 
Rue de I'Universite, 147. 
Rue de Rivoli, 140, 147, 148. 
Rue des ficoles, 140. 
Rue des Fossoyeurs, 246, 

252. 



Rue des Lombards, 205. 

Rue des Rosiers, 227. 

Rue des Vieux-Augustins, 

234- 
Rue de Tivoli, 137. 
Rue de Valois, 228. 
Rue du Chaume, 278. 
Rue du Helder, 213, 232, 

255. 
Rue du Louvre, 230. 
Rue du Monte Blanc, 84. 
Rue du Vieux-Colombier, 

251, 252. 
Rue Drouet, 95. 
Rue Ferou, 246. 
Rue Guenegard, 248. 
Rue Herold, 234. 
Rue Lafitte, 95. 
Rue Lepelletier, 114. 
Rue Louis le Grand, 94. 
Rue Mathieu Molle, 212. 
Rue Pelletier, 234. 
Rue Pigalle, 187. 
Rue Rambuteau, 92. 
Rue Richelieu, 102, 112, 115, 

147. 
Rue Roquette, 225. 
Rue Royal, 183. 
Rue Servandoni, 246. 
Rue Sourdiere, 228. 
Rue St. Antoine, 131, 133, 

147, 285. 
Rue St. Denis, 220. 
Rue St. Eleuthere, 227. 
Rue St. Honore, 147, 228. 
Rue St. Lazare, 188. 
Rue St. Martin (Le Bourg 

St. Martin), 130. 
Rue St. Roch, 148. 
Rue Taitbout, 214, 231. 
Rue Tiquetonne, 214, 246, 

247. 
Rue Vaugirard, 127, 246, 252. 
Rue Vivienne, 147. 
Rupert, Prince, 50. 
Russia, 8, 44. 



392 



UnOex 



Sabot, Mother, 24. 

Sainte Chapelle, 236. 

Saint Foix, 135. 

Salcede, 201. 

Salon d'Automne, 191. 

Salons, 161. 

Salpetriere, The, 134. 

Sand, George, 44, 70, 97, 

188, 363. 
Sand, Karl Ludwig, 285. 
Saone, 168. 

Sarcey, Francisque, 163. 
Sardou, 122. 
"Saul," 18. 
Schiller, 360. 
Scotland, 323. 
Scott, Sir Walter, 13, 41, 74, 

121, 360. 
Scribe, Eugene, 70, 82, 187. 
Sebastian!, General, 84. 
Second Empire, 89, 138, 140, 

153, 163, 193. 
Second Republic, 89, 181, 
Seine, The, 72, 98, 130, 137, 
148, 156, 165-171, 173-175, 
190, 248, 255, 302, 303, 311, 

314. 
Senlis, 317. 
Sens, 46. 
Sevigne, Madame de, 102, 

223. 
Seville, "76. 

Shakespeare, 121, 122. 
Sicily, 337, 369. 
Sillegue, Colonel de, 49. 
"Site d'ltalie" (Corot), 72. 
Smith, William, 179. 
"Soir" (Corot), ^2. 
Soissons, 7. 
Soldain, 259. 
Sorbonne, 134, 167, 245. 
Sorbonne, Robert de, 244. 
Soulie, 68, 82, 121. 
Soumet, 18. 
Soyer, 103. 
Spain, 8, 45, 160. 



'St. Bartholomew's Night, 

259, '2.(iZ- 
St. Beau vet, 69. 
St. Benezet d'Avignon, 172. 
St. Cloud, 157, 314. 
Ste. Croix, Gaudin de, 286. 
St. Denis, 227, 314. 
St. Denis, Abbey of, 142, 

143. 
St. Etienne-Andre-zieux, 160. 
Ste. Genevieve, 253, 254. 
Ste. Genevieve, Abbey of 2>7^ 

136, 187, 253. 
St. Germain, 44, 56, 58, 160, 

267, 297, 298. 
St. Germain, Abbot of, 166, 
St. Germain des Pres, 130. 
St. Germain-en-Laye, 303, 

304, 310-315. 
St. Germain I'Auxerrois, 187. 
St. Gratien, 125. 
St. Luc, Marquis, 255. 
St. Megrin, 122. 
St. Michel, 130. 
St. Vincent de Paul, 224, 
St. Victor, 130. 
St. Waast, Abbey of, 324. 
Stendhal, 155. 
Sterne, 322. 

Stevenson, R. L., 41, 44. 
Strasbourg (monument), 138, 

162. 
Strasbourg, 157. 
"Stryge, The," 127. 
Stuart, Mary, 323. 
Sue, Eugene, 69, 99, Z^Z- 
Switzerland, 8, 370. 
" Sword of the Brave Cheva- 
lier," 251. 
Sylla, 17. 
Sylvestre's, 272. 

TagHoni, Marie, 116, 117. 
Talleyrand, Henri de, 214. 
Talma, 17, 82, 121, 191. 
Tarascon, 349. 



irnOex 



393 



Tastu Mme. Amable, 70. 

Thackeray, 44. 

Thames, 168. 

Theatre de la Nation, 183. 

Theatre du Palais Royal, TJ, 
268. 

Theatre Frangaise, 16, 17, 121, 
167, 183, 187. 

" Theatre Historique," 44. 

Theatre Italien, 133. 

Theadlon, 18. 

Theaulon, 31. 

** The Conspirators," see 
Works of Dumas. 

" The Queen's Necklace," 
(Le Collier de la Reine), 
see Works of Dnmas. 

" The Regent's Daughter," 
see Works of Dumas. 

" The Sorbonne," 244. 

" The Taking of the Bas- 
tille," see Works of Du- 
mas. 

" The Wandering Jew," 99. 

" The Wolf-Leader," see 
Works of Dumas. 

Thierry, Edouard, 155, 165. 

Thiers, 69, 95. 

"Third Republic," 193. 

Titian, 191. 

Title of Dumas, 45, 57, 58. 

Touchet, Marie, 215, 217. 

Toul, 160. 

Toulon, 90, 91, ^ZZ, 326, 349, 
351. 

Toulouse, 159. 

" Tour de Jean-sans-Peur," 
214. 

Tour de Nesle, 237. 

Tour de_ St. Jacques la 
Boucherie, 197. 

Tour du Bois, 131. 

Tour Eiffel, 303, 314. 

Tours, 332. 

Tour St. Jacques, 140, 167, 
187, 263. 



Tower of London, 185. 

" Travels," see Works of 

Dumas. 
Travels of Dumas, 8, 44-46, 

336, 337, 361, 364, 370, 371- 
" Treasure Island," 42. 
Treville, De, 49, 246, 251. 
Trianon, The, 303. 
Trocadero, 147. 
Trouville, 325, 327, 371. 
Tuileries, The, 72, 133, 137, 

138, 150, 170, 176, 182, 184, 

185, 261, 265. 
Turenne, 90, 143, 224. 

Universite, The, 167, 244. 

Val-de-Grace, The, 134. 

Valenciennes, 49. 

Valois, House of, 12, 34, 38, 

195, 318- 
Valois, Marguerite de, 197, 

287, 351, 354- 
Valois Romances, 15, 44, 46, 

148, 171, 195, 205, 215, 225, 

235, 239, 254, 258, 259, 263, 

266, 278, 312, 314, 354, 355. 
Vandam, Albert, 6, 56, 76, 

77, 94, 95, 116, 118. 
Van Dyke, 191. 
Vatel, 199. 

Vermandois, Count of, 289. 
Vernet, 191. 
Vernon, 165, 169. 
Veron, Doctor, 79, iii, 116, 

117. 
Versailles, 297, 298, 302-306. 
Vesinet, 311. 
" Vicomte de Bragelonne," 

see Works of Dumas. 
Vidocq, 234. 
Viennet, 18. 
Vieux Chateau, 311, 312, 

313, 314- 
Vigny, De, 68. 
Villefort, De, 261, 340. 



394 



1[nt)ex 



Villemessant, De, 52. 

Villers-Cotterets, 7, 14, 15, 
18, 24, 25, 27, 33, 34, 
46, 80, 315, 317, 318, 321. 

Vincennes, 179, 315. 

Vincennes, Chateau of, 298, 
320. 

Vincennes, Fort of, 320. 

"Vingt Ans Apres" 
("Twenty Years After"), 
see Works of Dumas. 

Viollet-le-Duc, 144, 325. 

Vivieres, 24. 

Voltaire, 121, 122, 238, 288, 
303. 

Volterre, Ricciarelli de, 224, 

Wardes, De, 322. 
Warsaw, 76. 
Waterloo, 25. 
William III., 361. 
William the Conqueror, 326. 
Windt, Cornelius de, 361. 
Windt, Jacobus de, 361. 
Windsor, 154. 
Winter, Lady de, 223. 
Works of Dumas : 

" Ange Pitou," 36. 

" Antony," 29, ^y. 

"Black Tulip" ("La 
Tulipe Noire"), 38, 44, 
360-362, 365. 

"Capitaine Pamphile," 89, 
221, 231, 360. 

"Capitaine Paul" ("Paul 
Jones"), 38, 350. 

" Causeries," 36, 103. 

" Cherubino et Celestine," 

" Chevalier d'Harmental," 
228. 

"Chicot the Jester" ("La 
Dame de Monsoreau"), 
29, Z7, 38, 40, 207, 
253, 25s, 301, 319, 329, 



' Comtesse de Charny," 
223, 226, 229, 302, 303. 

Corsican Brothers," 89, 
213, 231, 319, 360. 

Count of Monte Cristo," 
29, 38-41, 44, i09i 218, 
229, 261, 327, 328, 339, 
340, 342, 343, 347, 355, 
358, 361, 368, 369. 

Crimes Celebres " ("Cele- 
brated Crimes"), 285, 
286, 323, 350, 372. 

Dictionnaire de Cuisine," 

Dix-huit Mois a St 
Petersburgh," 364. 

' Forty- Five Guardsmen," 
201, 248, 351, 365. 

Gabriel Lambert," 89, 91, 
231, 232, 350. 

Georges," 46. 

Henri IIL et Sa Cour," 
29, 121, 123. 

Iippressions du Voyage," 
36, 325, 364, 370. 

Jeanne d'Arc," 38. 

Kean," 29. 

La Tour de Nesle," 237. 

Les Pecheurs du Filet," 
368. 

Les Trois Mousque- 
taires" ("The Three 
Musketeers"), 29, 38-4i» 
44, 48, 54, 75, 126, 127, 
245, 247, 251, 252, 332, 
361. 

Maitre Adam le Cala- 
brais," 367. 

Marguerite de Valois, 
173, 175, 198, 210, 212, 
215, 221, 236, 257, 307, 
310, 311, 320. 

Memoires," 14, 15, 17, 23, 
25, 29, 32, 34, Z^, 
44, 70, 93, 104, 174, 228, 
325, 367. 



Hn^ex 



395 



" Memoires d'un Maitre 

d'Armes," 75, 364- 
" Mes Betes," 36, 45. 
" Mnrat," 367. 
"Pascal Bruno," 367. 
"Pauline," 171, 180, 231, 

325, Z^7, 370, 371. 
" The Conspirators," 173, 

271, 287. 
" The Queen's Necklace," 

("Le Collier de la 

Reine"), 105, 118, 204, 

228, 241, 254, 255, 275, 

295, 303, 306. 
"The Regent's Daughter,' 

292, 316, 334-336. 



"The Taking of the Bas- 
tille," 18, 24, 46, 175, 225, 

250, 279, 288, 303, 317. 
" The Wolf-Leader," 33, 46. 
"Vicomte de Bragelonne," 
24, 29, 38, 169, 199, 200, 
205, 247, 259, 2n, 288, 
292, 298, 300, 321, 328, 
330, 332. ^ , „ 

" Vingt Ans Apres 
("Twenty Years Af- 
ter"), 29, 214, 225, 245- 
247, 303, 310, 324- 

Zola, 7, 44, 64, 129, 188. 



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